Songs of Innocence
by Laryna6
Summary: Long ago, humans created reyvateils. Now Mir has created a sentient virus. Ayatane won't betray her, but that doesn't mean he wants to kill innocent people. Lyner isn't the only one trying to take a third option.
1. Exec Faura

Disclaimer: I don't own Ar Tonelico, Gust and other rightful owner do. No infringement intended or money made.

Warning: this fic is not rated M for Mature just for yaoi content and deconstructing/playing with/making fun of gender concept stereotypes (like utterly devoted robot magical girlfriends…). There will be discussion of a lot of very horrific and squicky stuff, especially in the way of reyvateil abuse. There are a lot of issues that the game mentions but skirts, and since Mir is going to be a major focus of this fic, it's going to have to go into much more detail as to why she did what she did. And what she'd do given the chance. What we are told and what is implied about pre-Mir's rebellion treatment of reyvateils is outright _horrific_. As in, massive, massive crimes against humanity (or a related sentient species) justified on racial grounds and allowed to continue for centuries.

If anyone here has read _Execute Program _or _As the Trumpets Sound _then you'll know that when I rate something M and use the horror category I am _not kidding_. You have been warned.

This fic also goes into _why _Lyner is the way he is, and as House points out, no one's that nice unless they're broken. Lyner raises a lot of red flags: the fact he can't remember Misha, his suicidal tendencies, when he goes berserk… All of that makes a whole lot of very scary sense in terms of human psych and reyvateil psych, especially a few things that Aurica demonstrates.

Note that these fics are being written from the canon in AT1&2, the games. I did do some online research (to make sure I had the right hymn codes and so on) for the fic, and while I would be interested in the stuff in the settai books if people want to mention it and it's relevant, I reserve the right to ignore non-game information, especially when it outright contradicts things like _major game plot points_. If a line in the settai, when thought about for five seconds, means that Aurica's route could never have happened, then I'm ignoring that line. Also, I am applying logic and common sense to the AT world. Bwahahaha, I always get the best crack that way. While I am ignoring a couple game plot points, they're ones like the fact that Ayatane's cover story (mentioned in the scene where he possesses Shurelia) was literally impossible: even a five year old in Platina should have known that it couldn't be true. So, I'm giving him one that doesn't suck. Things like that. When I ignore something, I will mention and justify it: I don't believe in taking liberties with canon without good reason.

There is a _lot _of worldbuilding thought going into this fic. I've been wanting to write this thing for years. I'll be putting A/Ns at the beginning or end of chapters so people can skip them if they don't like worldbuilding (strange, strange people). The fact that I'm covering so much ground in this fic means that, unlike in oneshots, I'm not going to be answering questions and wrapping up plotlines until months after they're introduced sometimes, so bear with me. The foreshadowing and things out of place will all make sense eventually.

Disclaimer: I don't own Ar Tonelico or any associated properties. No infringement intended or money made.

* * *

"Here," Ayatane says, tossing the Healy C through the air to Lyner, who catches it and drinks it down gratefully.

"Thanks, Ayatane." Lyner nods to him in thanks, smiling, but he clearly doesn't think anything of it. They're friends, and friends help each other.

"_That could so easily have been poison, you know_," Ayatane thinks, but doesn't say, because he needs Lyner to trust him just a little longer. Aurica is Mir's daughter, his sister, even if she doesn't know it: she's no threat but this Radolf is. All of his abilities are physical blows: he can't draw on the tower's power the way Lyner and the Knights of Elemia can, with the help of the reyvateil blood in their veins.

There are things that no one noticed about Ayatane because in Platina, they were perfectly normal. In the rare event that anyone did suspect him, it was easy enough to wait until the next time they dived and influence them through their connection to their reyvateil partner and her connection to the tower.

He wishes he could travel with them long enough for dear Lyner to visit a dive shop… Lyner never did that back in Platina, not when he was destined to be Lady Shurelia's partner. There was no point. He could almost hate the Star Singer for being Lyner's first as much as keeping his mother sealed away for so long.

Mother won't feel safe as long as humans exist, but she saw how sad that reyvateil was when she killed her Knight. The reyvateil hadn't understood why Mother was doing this, not at all, and that was proof that something had changed. It had made her finally start listening to Ayatane about Platina, about the knights, about what Lady Shurelia had done and the opportunity all of this presented.

It would be betraying his mother to help a human, one of her enemies.

He's so glad he didn't need to make that choice. He's very glad that instead of giving dear Lyner a poison, he was able to give him the right to live in Mother's Utopia. He'd meant to watch over him on the way back to Platina, but Bishop Falss had gotten entirely the wrong idea about his place in the world. Lyner would get Aurica to Platina and she would be much safer with him.

* * *

The first thing Lyner notices is that he's tiring faster. Before, this journey was forcing him to push himself to his limits, yes, but there's a lot to be said for training like that. But sometimes it seems as though his arms are wet noodles. Worse, sometimes he simultaneously feels too tired to walk another step (although he forces himself to) and bursting with energy, mind whirling, thinking far too much to sleep.

At least that's stopped.

Now he just feels tired on two different levels.

"Are you ok, Lyner?" This isn't the first time Aurica's asked him that, since Ayatane brought her back and then ran up ahead in the tower to harry Falss' army. He keeps reassuring her that he's ok, but he's noticed that she's singing fewer and fewer red magic songs and more blue magic, granting him strength to replace the strength he's lost.

"I can go on," he assures her, but the point of his sword droops to the ground and he needs a moment to collect himself. The right side of his neck is suddenly furiously itchy, and he wonders if something _did _manage to poison him, even though he's checked.

"Why don't we just take a break for a bit," Radolf offers, and Lyner knows that they need to hurry but he has to admit that he needs it.

So he nods and leans against the wall for a nap, before grimacing and starting to remove his armor so he can get at his neck. It's not just an itch, it's an ache: maybe rubbing it would help?

"Should I sing, Lyner?"

He shakes his head. "It's nothing, it's just been bugging me all day. It can't be serious, or it would have gone away the other times you sang."

She moves a little closer to him, still concerned, so he moves his hand away so she can take a look.

Aurica gasps, startled, "That's!" She clapped her hands over her mouth before she could say any more.

Curious, Radolf turns his head so he can see as well, and Lyner has never heard him blaspheme before. "But that's impossible. The Apostles of Elemia might be the counterparts of the Holy Maidens and possess some of the power of the goddess Eoria herself, but…"

"What?"

Aurica can only shake her head, shocked and somehow terrified for him.

Radolf is frowning thoughtfully, which looks a little more useful. "How long have you had that… itch?"

"I noticed that my neck felt a little weird sometimes a few days ago, but I started feeling tired before that. I think it started the morning after we left the Silvaplate." Were they connected?

"That glyph, it's…" Aurica can't say it, it's too terrible.

"I've only seen those markings on one thing. A diquility port." The crystals that reyvateils had to have inserted into their bodies, or else they weakened and began to die. The process was painful, but going without too often taxed their bodies to the point where even if someone forced them to take it in time, it could cut years off their lifespans. The Knights of Elemia trained so that every member knew how to do a painless insertion if their partners needed it. Lyner hadn't gotten that training, because his partner was going to be Lady Shurelia, but on the Wings of Horus? Third generation reyvateils didn't live very long, everyone knew that.

This was why.

"…What? Lady Shurelia. She'd know." She knew everything. "We have to get to Platina, either way." He started to pull his armor back on.

Radolf and Aurica exchanged glances. "Lyner, it might be worth a try. You really are sick," far too pale, "and you did it for me."

He hesitates, but Aurica wants to return the favor and he can't reject her.

Once she starts, he wishes he could. It hurts, it hurts worse than being stabbed in the gut (and he speaks from experience), but he can feel it flowing into his bloodstream; he can feel muscles that were fatigued without it starting to revive. His head tingles, and a headache he didn't even know he had, since his neck hurt so much, goes away. Everything seems clearer, and it's a good feeling. Like a cold glass of water after a hard workout. Like coming home to a big meal after unannounced survival training.

It's a relief, it's good and he wants it.

Even though it hurts like crazy. The pain starts to get tangled up with the feeling of relief, and the acknowledgement that yeah, the pain is worth it. It makes him grit his teeth and cling to Aurica the way she pushed back against him. He knows he's hurting her, it makes her hand slip and makes the crystal bang into the delicate, sensitive sides of the port, but even that becomes part of it.

When he's finally gotten enough, the feeling of fullness makes him shudder against her. He's dimly aware that sweat is beading on his brow. His body is hot, too hot, and he wants to sleep even though he feels like he could run a marathon and fight those new viruses at the end of it.

It's like orgasm without the pleasure, and he can feel his body respond to the thought… No, it had already responded. There really was something intensely sensual about it, someone else causing him to feel such overwhelming sensations. His entire being centered around what Aurica held In her hand and his _need _for her to stick it in him, no matter how much it hurt. For that excruciating half-minute, Aurica was his goddess, and he would have done anything for her to keep going, would have begged for her to spare him the pain if he didn't know that she was already doing her best. "Next time… faster. Just force it in, I can take it." He didn't know much about insertion, but he knew that her hesitance to hurt him and the way her hand had shaken hadn't helped. He drew in another ragged breath. "Is it always like that?"

He realizes that even now that it's over, or perhaps because it's over and he wants to recapture that feeling, he wants her to tackle him, push him against the wall or down into the ground, claim his mouth and fill him full of nothing but her. Not that sick, twisted need, but something cleaner, pleasure instead of pain, affection instead of dependence.

But this is Aurica, his gentle Songstress, who would never do something like that (or would she?), and he realizes that she was probably wanting him to do that to her, all this time. Except he couldn't.

He wants Lady Shurelia, because surely she can fix this. He wants Ayatane, because his friend, his blood-brother's solid, dependable presence would at least make him feel like this were something normal, something they could handle.

Blastline, he even wants his father to yell at him and tell him to stop being an immature fool and snap out of it.

His eyes slid closed at some point, and Aurica says, "Yes," when he doesn't see her nod. "You're getting a lot better at it, though." Better at giving me what I need. "I'll try to…" He knows she's blushing at the thought of giving it to him.

"Well, that was…" Bishop Radolf doesn't quite know what to say. With his armor off, it's fairly obvious that Lyner didn't grow breasts without noticing it: that's all muscle.

"Weird. About as weird as viruses that just won't die." Lyner draws his legs up, leans forward and rests his head on his knees.

"Do you think that has something to do with it?"

"Maybe the hymn crystal Purger would fix it, then?" Aurica puts her hand to Lyner's forehead: too warm is better than too cold, right?

"Maybe," Lyner says, trying to sound upbeat. It's a little easier for the other two to believe it now that a little color has come back into his cheeks.

* * *

Ayatane would have congratulated himself for correctly guessing the identity of Lyner's Cosmosphere Guardian if there had ever been any doubt.

Dodging the Funbun mascot's furious charges would have been much easier if the entirety of this cosmosphere wasn't engulfed in an earthquake: the ground kept falling apart beneath him, new landscapes thrusting up through it. Was this because Lyner's cosmosphere was still forming, now that he was a reyvateil? Or did becoming one shake his world enough to cause this?

What was surprising was that actually, it was a lot easier to control Lady Shurelia's body than Lyner's. Now that he thought about it, it did make sense. He'd been dodging the tower's security since he was made, but he didn't have any experience with reyvateils-who-had-been-humans, and Lady Shurelia didn't have a cosmosphere guardian. Lady Shurelia _was _the guardian of Ar Tonelico.

There was an old quote: who guards the guardians?

Lady Shurelia's guards had been Leard, himself and dear Lyner.

Speaking of which, where was…

"Impulse!"

"Ah, there you are." Ayatane smiled after managing to sidestep the second half of the whirlwind caused by the dragon's wingbeats. "That's quite impressive." A red magic already? Had that been the true nature of his ability to call the winds, all along?

"There's nothing impressive about it."

"You're wearing those robes?" Those were the Star Singer's robes: was this the self that Lyner had buried, the self that remembered Misha, blamed himself for failing to rescue her from her fate, and sought to save all reyvateils to make up for it? Or was he already accepting his new nature? "Letting me so deep on our first dive?"

"Deep?" This Lyner laughed, and it was even an imitation of Misha's noblewoman's laugh. "This is level one."

That was more than a little frightening. The deeper levels of a cosmosphere were the deadliest, the avatars the most willing to deceive and destroy the unwary diver (because, after all, if they didn't know the risks and the person they were facing then they had no right to dive so deep), and it seemed that Ayatane would be fighting for his life from the very beginning.

Flattering, because it showed how important he was to dear Lyner. How much Lyner depended on him. He wasn't using a dive shop, so there wasn't that handy little measurement of how much trust he had earned, how much more Lyner would be willing to yield up to his best friend and shieldmate… but he had earned the trust Lyner and Lady Shurelia had given him. The trust he had needed to stab them in the back.

Or had he spent too much of it on that? How deep would he be able to go before he had to deal with Lyner's conscious self, try and regain his trust? "So you're here to stop me from forcing my way back into your heart."

There was that laugh again, and it shouldn't have sounded so natural from a man's voice, let alone Lyner's. "Oh no, I want you to go deeper."

"What?"

"I want to be rescued, after all." Lyner's inner Misha batted her eyes at him. "But I'm not going to rescue myself, or even lift a finger to help. You're going to have to fight me every inch of the way."

"Lyner…" That wasn't just about Misha, was it? Lyner had always felt trapped by his position as Leard's heir. He didn't mind his duty to protect the city, or Lady Shurelia: that wasn't it at all. But part of him did remember Misha, and Leard saying that doing things like that, maybe even including doing things like that to innocent little girls would one day be his duty, too, and that? He rejected. Still, if it was to protect, then he couldn't just run away. Like Misha, he was trapped by the necessity of his duty.

This Lyner's eyes softened. "You understand, huh?" Of course Ayatane did.

"Soon, Mother will be free, and no one will be trapped as the Star Singer anymore. She won't let anyone hurt reyvateils ever again."

"You really believe that, don't you? Weren't you there? When she killed Vande?" Poor Ciel's knight? Hadn't he seen how it broke her heart? They'd trained alongside them, how could Ayatane not know?

Ayatane had to stare. Level one manifestations weren't aware of the outside world. Higher level manifestations didn't _care. _They had their own problems to deal with, the problems of the reyvateil themselves.

Then again, this _was_ dear, compassionate Lyner. Perhaps his avatars might not be as separate from his conscious mind as a normal reyvateil's were, too, since they were newly-made. The issues cosmospheres suppressed would have been there all along, but humans didn't have cosmospheres.

As this was Lyner, pausing to stare cost him.

Why in the heavens had he thought becoming a reyvateil would make Lyner lose any of his skill with a sword? "You need to be more careful." The wound closed up right away, the way the damage from the whirlwind had, showing that he did still have 'Dependence Points' to burn. "You're a reyvateil now. Exerting yourself will…"

"Burn up the diquility faster, shortening my lifespan: I know." A lot of people in the Wings of Horus didn't know why reyvateils weren't allowed to fight, or thought it was to 'encourage' them to get a partner instead of becoming the sort of rogue that had dropped the other Wing. Aurica's friend Claire wasn't persecuted because s he was a reyvateil, she was viewed with fear because she was a rogue who didn't have a partner, wasn't with Tenba or the Church. The Knights of Elemia, on the other hand, knew why it was the knight's duty to take the hits for their reyvateil. A knight could afford to, as long as his reyvateil sang healing in return. A reyvateil couldn't. "Think I'll let that stop me?" This was inside his mind, too. He could do whatever he wanted here.

That was when Ayatane realized that Lyner must have been fighting like a human all his way up the tower. At first, he wouldn't have known, and after that, he wouldn't have cared. "…Then it's a good thing you won't have to fight from now on." The entire point of this was to save him, not to bleed his life away, drop by drop.

"Try and stop me."

"But, Lyner? I already have." Just a little longer, to get Lady Shurelia to Mother, and then surely Mother would let him put Lyner somewhere safe.

* * *

_Alright. I really should be waiting on Ar Tonelico 3 to do any speccing, but I've been waiting how long now? Thus:_

_According to Frelia in AT2, if a human marries a reyvateil, male children are human and female children are reyvateils. Now, reyvateils were designed. Meaning that if a gene on the Y chromosome blocks the ability, as Frelia also says in AT2, it's by design._

_The fact that there are still female humans around, like Krusche, says quite a bit in and of itself. There seem to be families (there's an exchange among NPCs in AT2) that do not want their sons to marry reyvateils, and the fact that human women are gradually becoming extinct and reyvateil grandchildren have serious health risks would be good reasons._

_In Platina, however, where humans and reyvateils seem to be fully integrated, I seriously doubt there are more than a few female humans around at this point if any, given the people who founded the city, and basically the entire purpose of the city, was human-reyvateil partnerships (the Knights/Apostles of Elemia). If there were any human women in the base stock, they were probably also in relationships with reyvateils. That doesn't preclude them having a handful of children, but it has been centuries. _

_At this point, it's fairly safe to say that if it weren't for that block, Lyner'd be a reyvateil. Given the above, his mother was a reyvateil, his father probably has as about much reyvateil DNA as he does… According to AT2, those genes are basically being suppressed, prevented from expressing themselves (that's actually the technical term). They're still there in men, just switched off. _


	2. Mother Knows Best

_I've been thinking that there should be male reyvateils for a long time, but reading a few more of the Sime/Gen novels helped me put my thoughts together. The 'MP' is sort of a second type of energy, a second metabolic system that humans don't have, and making that work? Being flooded with a kind of _radiation? _No wonder third-generation reyvateils with human DNA in there are in trouble. If it was all on the X chromosome, they'd be fine: just have the reyvateil X suppress the human one. No: the fact that 'pure-blooded' is a big deal shows that there are other chromosomes involved. _

_Another thing that all of the worldbuilding means is that Cocona is seriously badass. Given the worldbuilding in the games and this fic's extension of it, Cocona is a sign that reyvateils as a species are beginning to evolve solutions to the limitations imposed on them and health problems they possess. It makes sense that the first warrior reyvateils would come from the tower that's had diquility the longest, where there would have been genetic selection for things other than teen pregnancy (having kids while still alive) the longest. Third-generations would have essentially been forced to marry at a young age and stay at home without exerting themselves: a nasty, nasty little bit of social engineering. _

_While Platina's reyvateils might have a higher percentage of reyvateil blood, and hence resistance to the damaging effects of magic going through part-human bodies, the fact that their society was one engineered to give reyvateils equal rights and maximum lifespans implies some very strict social codes. Then there's also the fact that they're descended from a reyvateil-worshipping _religious military _order. This universe's equivalent of the real Knights Templar. They'd have to be that strict to counteract the very bleak Cold Equations of reyvateil physical lifespans. The difference between reyvateils being viewed as disposable since they break anyway and humans being treated as disposable (relatively) since they can handle more before they break is brainbreaking for Mir. _

* * *

Mir didn't see the point of clothing. When she was supposed to be an emotionless thing, they hadn't let her wear any, unless it was in public, and then it was itchy, uncomfortable, ugly things she didn't like. They'd _liked _taking it off her, too…

It was just hiding a reyvateil's body, hiding their power, another form of chains.

"Mother, are you alright?"

"Ayatane?" No, of course that was Ayatane, even if he was in Shurelia's other knight's body. The markings on his face made it obvious. She still couldn't help but draw back, because while Ayatane's body didn't frighten her, he was her son, this still _looked _like a human. A man, like those who had…

"Yes, it's me, Mother. Controlling three bodies at once, especially Lady Shurelia's, was too much of a risk." Especially while trying to carry an unconscious Leard. So he'd returned his own body to the tower, for now.

"Help me out of this tin can." It was too much like being chained up.

"Yes, of course." He'd identified the shutdown switch during his service to Lady Shurelia, since if the armor was damaged? It was too heavy to lift, so they would have to extract Lady Shurelia from it in order to retreat.

Mir took a deep breath once it was open, gathering herself, and hopped out. She had noticed the hand Ayatane had held out to help her down, but pretended not to. She couldn't stand the idea of a human touching her, never again.

He smiled, seeming to know her thoughts. "Thank you for making that virus for me."

"I should have thought of using viruses long ago. The third generation reyvateils are weakened by their human blood. If I can replace those genes and turn them into true," pureblooded, "reyvateils, then they won't die so young." She started to remove Shurelia's… what sort of clothing was this? Well, it wasn't like it mattered.

"The Knights of Elemia: all of them are half reyvateil, or almost." Many of the pureblood betas had lived a long time and had many children. "The city was settled by reyvateils and the knights in their service. Lyner has more reyvateil blood than your daughter."

"I'm aware of that. That's why I made that virus for you in the first place." Only one of the real Aurica's sixteen great-grandparents had been a reyvateil: being a matrilineal descendant was all it took for the change to be triggered. Even if they didn't have enough reyvateil blood to survive as a reyvateil. The creation of Mir that had replaced her, after Ayatane had made her foster parents forget that their daughter had been stillborn, had no such weakness, but that was why the Church had thought she would never amount to much.

According to Shurelia's files, every single woman who had married into the Barsett line since the founding of the city had been a reyvateil (even if most of the reyvateils were also third-generation), and the first Barsett, along with many other Apostles, had joined Shurelia's forces in the first place because he came from a family of reyvateils and didn't want to allow them to be persecuted any more than he himself wanted to die.

As she kicked off her boots, Mir said, "They designed us this way so that we would be dependent on them. We wouldn't have the physical strength to fight back if they tried to hurt us, and we wouldn't be able to survive as a race without them." She had made Ayatane not just as her son, but to replace humanity so that reyvateils would be able to have children. Children with reyvateil genes on both sides, not human genes, so that even if the watered-down reyvateils like Aurica couldn't be saved, after a few generations their daughters would have the lifespans they should have had. Only pure-blooded beta types could use parthenogenesis. "Except for the lovers of a few reyvateils, Shurelia didn't bring any human women to her city."

Ayatane wasn't surprised to hear that. It was a military base: Apostles only, and they were reyvateils and the partners of reyvateils.

"And since only human women have human daughters, after a few generations, there weren't any human women left. If I didn't know Shurelia better, I'd think she planned that. A city where reyvateils could be born who wouldn't just grow weaker every generation, because they'd inherit reyvateil blood from both sides. A city based around the concept of humans serving and protecting reyvateils. The Wing of Horus may be mostly human, but the humans of Platina can't exist without us."

Ayatane nodded. "Now do you believe me, Mother?"

"At first, I couldn't," she admitted, turning away from him to examine the armor more closely. Now that she thought about it, armor like this was a _really _good idea. A way to compensate for a reyvateil's frailty. "I thought that reyvateil who didn't understand why I'd killed that human had been brainwashed. And then I watched them fight. A human taking a blow for a reyvateil is only good tactical sense, but even my viruses couldn't get anything past them until they were dead on their feet." Healing and strength-boosting hymns couldn't compensate for a lack of sleep, and Platina had been mounting a desperate defense against viruses that _would not die_. "They'd apologize." A human, apologizing to a reyvateil? "Even if they were about to fall over, and when I did manage to kill a human… "

"If a reyvateil loses her partner, it is her duty to immediately report back to base or another safe location. The duty of a pair is to defend Platina and Lady Shurelia. The duty of a Knight fighting alone is to locate their Songstress. The duty of a Songstress is to survive. Unlike Knights, Songstresses do_ not_ have the luxury of engaging in melee combat or placing themselves at risk by trying to leave an enemy alive. Should an unaccompanied Songstress be attacked and unable to retreat, her only valid tactical option is to annihilate her opponent as quickly as possible. Any Songstress suspected of trying to spare the life of her opponent while fighting alone _will _be court-martialed for recklessly endangering a protector of Elemia and neglecting her duty."

"Is that a quote?"

"Yes. One of those passages that gets hammered into everyone in basic. I assume you've seen what happens when a Songstress's partner dies."

She had.

The _grief_, real grief, and sometimes he'd stayed alive long enough to tell her to run, and she ran. Sometimes she sobbed over the body until another pair moved in, the knight covering her and the reyvateil yelling at her. Telling her that she had to get back to base, did she want him to have died for nothing?

Even when they desperately needed more troops there, her people's well-being mattered to them. "You were right. This place… It's close." To the Reyvateilia she'd envisioned, a place where her people could be safe and happy. "But not close enough." When it produced a human like Falss. "I didn't believe you because I know humans better than that, but, from the samples I took, you're right. If it weren't for that gene the humans put in place to suppress reyvateil traits in men, so that all reyvateils would be pretty little toys for them that could bear them human sons, they would be reyvateils. Our brothers. If we really can connect them to the tower, to their sisters?" Make them true reyvateils?

"We can, Mother." Ayatane easily unbuckled Lyner's armor: they'd helped each other gear up often enough. When he bared the human's neck, smirking, Mir instantly knew what she was looking at.

Idiot! Virus or human, maybe men were just _men_. "Ayatane? I thought I told you to test that on someone expendable."

Ayatane frowned at her. "But Mother…" Weren't all humans expendable?

"Don't but Mother me. I thought you wanted to keep this one alive. Don't look surprised, of course I knew you were fond of your little pet." Ayatane had needed to pretend to be a child in order to get into the knights: she'd even needed to find a false mother for him. Foundlings didn't happen in Platina. He'd gotten close to the heir of the city, Shurelia's future partner, just as planned, so that when the boy died in an 'accident' he would be the obvious choice to take his place. "Don't think I didn't know that you were dragging your feet." She was the strategist who had conquered half the tower and dropped most of the other half.

"…Mother, I would never…"

"Of course I trust you, that's the only reason I let you do it. It wasn't like_ I_ could spend time with you." She wanted to ruffle her son's hair. "Put him to sleep and bring out your own body."

"Yes, Mother." Properly chastised, and grateful for her indulgence, he obeyed, after putting… Lyner - she'd have to stop calling Lyner 'Ayatane's pet human' now that he wasn't human - down on the ground.

"Ayatane, why didn't I train my reyvateils to fight with weapons?"

"Because the more caloric energy a reyvateil burns, the more it disrupts the power flow and causes damage, including DNA damage. Diquility only smooths out the power flow so much. Because of that, third-generation reyvateils especially must not exert themselves." Ayatane had grown up in a city where decent people didn't let reyvateils carry heavy groceries home, in the same way that decent people started singing if a child tripped and scraped his knee. He bowed his head. "I know, Mother. He was fighting all the way up the tower, even after he _knew_…" But he wouldn't be Lyner if he had stopped fighting, to protect Platina and to protect Aurica. "I'll make sure he doesn't fight you anymore, Mother."

"It's not just that. Look at him, Ayatane."

Ayatane looked. Mir had to admit that Lyner was handsome, and that if she could stand the thought of a man touching her she might have been interested. He looked so sweet and harmless, but that didn't mean anything. Mir knew that she herself looked like a little angel when she was asleep. That hair, those eyes, all that lean muscle…

"By the goddesses!" _Now _Ayatane got it. Swearing by Shurelia? He'd picked up bad habits there.

"Even _having _muscle burns energy, which is why reyvateils have to go out of our way to avoid developing it. An active third-generation reyvateil is lucky to live into her thirties. He's larger and," reyvateils were small, "he's got so much muscle, so his metabolism is easily three or four times faster than mine! On top of that, his body isn't used to handling diquility flow: all that virus did was turn it on, I didn't even try to ease the transition." When she said expendable she meant expendable! Hadn't Ayatane learned what happened to test subjects from the history she'd taught him?

"Mother, what should I do?"

"Tie him down somewhere so he can't move and starve him." The nice word for it was 'dieting,' but Mir knew what it really was. "Water, a little food, but not enough to live on. His body will devour its own muscle and store up fat instead." That was what they had done, to get her body to destroy any muscle she managed to get it to form and lower her metabolism. "You can use my old chambers in the Silver Horn." There was even an old diving capsule there, so Ayatane could work on that if he found the time.

"You're right, he couldn't escape from there." Clever as he was.

"I still need you to focus on our plan. However, you're a virus yourself: you can try and improve on the formula I made if you like. Just remember next time what happens to test subjects." You didn't use your friend or your daughter as one. No one would, in her new world. "If you like, you can go spread that virus in Platina's water supply. That way I'll have a good sample pool to test methods of life extension on." So she could use it for the third generation reyvateils.

"Yes, Mother." He nodded, but all his focus was on Lyner as he picked him up, as carefully as though he was made of spun glass.

"Remember to check his diquility levels!" Honestly. She shook her head. At least Ayatane was being much less trouble than Aurica. She'd told Falss to properly teach her and… Honestly. Well, if Falss was so dedicated to gaining the power of reyvateils, maybe she should sing Exec_Faura again and make another batch... They'd probably execute him first, though.


	3. Little Silver

It's worth looking into the hierarchy of human needs. Safety is number two out of the five, and humans, as members of a tribal species, cannot feel safe without believing that someone cares about them and will help them if they need it (parent, friend, whatever). Stick a human somewhere alone, and this will drive them nuts unless they start talking to a Companion Cube (or to God). Misha had Hama. General Ayatane, as implied by the fact he's Jacqli's cosmosphere guardian (and perhaps the other characters in her novel) may have been hers after the reaction to Harmonius destroyed any belief that her parents loved her. This is likely much of the reason she hesitated to destroy virus!Ayatane after he turned against her.

Mir's genocidal quest essentially being one for _safety_ makes much more sense in the context of the hierarchy. Safety is almost as fundamental a need as food or drink. We need it or we die, so yes, she was quite literally fighting for survival until that need was satisfied. By something as simple as a hug.

The way I'm handling it, Aurica is indeed Mir's daughter, or as much as Ayatane is her son, and they were both just placed with families. Another option is that Aurica is really her many-greats granddaughter, with blood watered down to the point of near-uselessness, as the game repeatedly says about her. Her descendants could have survived by going into very serious hiding, after the wing dropped, but the tower still identifies Aurica as a member of Mir's bloodline, so anyone who could get data from the tower could easily find her. I am going with the first interpretation (that Aurica is an actual creation of Mir) in this fic, because I like the idea of Ayatane having some actual family feeling for his sister.

If Mir had a daughter with a human man, then she isn't very likely to have done it willingly or have fond memories of the experience. That would explain why she's so very willing to destroy Aurica's personality in the game, but again, writing them as siblings appeals. According to the wiki, Mir likely never had a daughter, but Mir seems pretty insistent in the game about there being a genetic relationship, not just a coincidental frequency one, and she would know. Family is a theme in this fic, and I wanted Aurica to play a certain key role in redeeming Mir. However, a descendant of rape, a reminder of it, wouldn't exactly be able to reassure her that way. In the same way that it was, tactically, a bad idea for Misha to be the one to sing Harmonious. It was good for Misha's character development, but a bad idea for redeeming Mir purposes.

* * *

The flood of viruses from the Altar of the Apostles might have stopped, but Platina's makeshift hospitals were still full of patients. Whatever had happened to Lyner was spreading like a plague, and _every single man in the city_ had caught it. Since the reyvateils couldn't leave their partners, "It looks like we're going to have to face Mir by ourselves," Radolf told Jack, Krusche, Aurica and Misha.

"I hope Lyner's alright…" Aurica said.

"That no good… I bet he was Lyner's friend from back then! No wonder he wouldn't play with me!" The Lune line had some ability to detect Mir's power, and existed to counter it. Tastiella had sent Misha back up when they couldn't get back into the room after Misha was kicked out. Anyway, it was clear that the song alone wasn't keeping Mir sealed any longer. Not when her mind had escaped from the tower. Misha tried not to be happy about that.

"We'll get him back." Krusche was just excited to be going above the blastline. Yeah, the circumstances were bad, but the blastline! She felt exhausted from all the prep work she'd been doing, but just the thought of it made her feel like she could run there up the side of the tower!

Jack caught her as she swayed on her feet. "Hey, are you alright?"

"My right shoulder itches." Right under her bra strap.

"Let me take a look."

"I don't think so." She pushed his hand off her and looked for a bathroom. She could use a mirror to get a look at her back.

Misha tilted her head. "I thought it was only men who were catching it."

"We don't know that," Jack told her. "This is Platina."

"The city of the Apostles of Elemia, the Guardians and Songstresses," Radolf realized. "There's no one here but men and reyvateils, is there?"

"There are a few Teru," Jack told him. "None of them have gotten sick. So I should be ok."

Radolf looked thoughtful. "A plague that turns humans into reyvateils: what if it's Mir's doing? Lyner became ill shortly after Ayatane left us."

"And he took Lyner with him." That wasn't good.

"I hope he's ok." Aurica was really worried. "He needed diquility so often, and he still kept running low so fast."

"If it's catching, then why haven't I caught it?" Radolf wondered. Actually, he had. Far back in Krusche's family tree, there was the son of a reyvateil. She'd inherited her X chromosome from him, and that was all it took for the virus to trigger the transformation. While Radolf had some reyvateil genes, he lacked the most important ones, which was why none of his combat techniques had any elemental power.

* * *

Lyner had never exactly been a morning person, but he'd never genuinely hated mornings before, either. Not until waking up meant waking up to a feeling of weakness and exhaustion dragging him down. He tried not to grumble, even wordlessly, since that always got a lecture from his father or a stern reprimand from Lady Shurelia, but since it was only Ayatane shaking his shoulder to get him to wake up he yielded to the urge. It was incredibly handy to have a roommate who was willing to wake you up precisely five minutes before you had to head out the door after a long night.

When he mumbled under his breath Ayatane squeezed his shoulder a bit, in that consoling way that meant yes, Ayatane was sorry Lyner couldn't go back to sleep but he really did need to get his ass out of bed before he was late for drill. Lyner had never told Ayatane that getting a bit of a free shoulder massage out of it was anything but an incentive to get out of bed.

Ayatane brushing his hair away from his neck was new, though, and that rang a tiny alarm bell because while Ayatane was a great friend and generally even-tempered, he wasn't above pouring freezing cold water over Lyner if he took an obscenely long time 'waking up.'

Of course, Lyner did the same sort of thing, like giving him a Funbun T-shirt to wear back at the Musical Corridor, which had helped Radolf get over his adulation of the Apostles of Elemia a bit, but while normally that was fun, right now he was tired.

Lyner stopped questioning what Ayatane was up to when he started rubbing the back of Lyner's neck. On the one hand, Ayatane giving him an _actual _massage when Lyner needed to wake up meant he'd figured it out, the jig was up and Lyner wasn't going to get any more massages, but on the other hand his neck was _killing_ him and ooh right there.

The Church taught that crystals should be inserted slowly and carefully, but efficiently, just getting the job done so everyone could pretend that it was just a medical procedure, nothing sexual about it. That way, nobody had to feel a, violated, or b, _incredibly_ dirty, because they'd just had a choice of doing… _that _to someone who might be as young as twelve or letting that same young woman _die_. Everybody was supposed to just stand there and think of the goddesses. The idea of someone enjoying it, or enjoying doing that to a poor reyvateil would have seriously squicked Bishop Radolf.

The Knights of Elemia taught that in order to make it pleasant for your partner, you didn't just go straight to the part where you stuck it in them. It was important to make sure that they were relaxed and open, not just able to grin and bear it but _wanting_ it. The insertion port was a very sensitive part of a reyvateil's body, and it didn't open instantly, not to mention that it took a lot less time to dissolve the crystal if it had already started to get wet. Trying to put something in before it was fully primed _hurt_, and therefore it tried to close in self-defense, which just made it hurt more. Satisfying their need for the crystal should be a pleasant experience for reyvateils, not something that needed to be forced on them but just giving them what they craved. After a few years, the instructors had given up trying to find a term for it that didn't instantly get turned into innuendo and just admitted that it was foreplay.

Reyvateils too young to have a partner were tended to by other reyvateils or knights that were sworn not to take an interest in them (since obviously parents were out of the question). The idea of him making sexual advances on a reyvateil placed in his care for the sake of protection would have offended Lyner: the practice was the last remnant of an ancient tradition of fosterage, from the time when reyvateils had legally been considered property and someone had to technically own them (since fathers couldn't own their biological daughters once they reached breeding age) and so a knight guarding a young reyvateil while she traveled or searched for a partner was acting in loco parentis. The idea of abusing the privilege was beyond the pale.

Ayatane had taken that class, unlike Lyner, because Ayatane was a little older and it was assumed that someday he would get over his crush on Lady Shurelia and find a partner of his own. Between his politeness and his exotic looks there had been plenty of eager volunteers for him to practice on. On the other hand, Lyner was not only sixteen, but destined to be Lady Shurelia's partner, and she didn't need diquility.

Which meant that Ayatane knew _exactly _what he was doing, and Lyner didn't have any idea whatsoever because it wasn't like anything he'd felt before. He'd finally managed to get Aurica to just drive it in, hard and fast, because that way it was in and the port could close around it quickly. It got it over with.

Still, that kind of abuse and the stress of everything that was happening had made his neck and shoulders tense up like _anything_, so Ayatane rubbing them still reminded Lyner of all of that. Also the last time he'd woken up in a tent with Ayatane, and Radolf too, and the way Ayatane looked walking around in nothing but a long Funbun T-shirt.

"Mmm," was the most intelligent comment he could make as another knot untwisted, and the way his body arched in reaction rubbed him up against the sheets. "Mmm?" Was he naked? He didn't sleep naked, not when he had a roommate and reyvateils kept coming into his room in the middle of the night. It wasn't decent.

"Just relax, dear Lyner," Ayatane purred, and he was perfectly happy to do that. Really. Especially if it meant the massaging continued.

Ayatane rubbed something cool and smooth in a kind of circle on his shoulder, and it made him tense up a bit because he wanted to tell Ayatane, no, he was just missing the spot, he needed to move it… Ayatane always could read his mind.

Ah… He managed to turn his face to the side, away from the pillow, so he could say, "There, like that. Keep… Mmm." Warm, blessed relief flowed into him and he felt like he could move again, think again, trying to get up on his elbows to push up against Ayatane's hand and the thing he held.

Crystal. Like Aurica.

Aurica who had sung, and Mir, and… He should be trying to pull away, ask Ayatane _why_, but, but _fuck, _he needed this.

Diquility wasn't technically a drug in the addictive sense. An addictive drug was something that tricked the body into thinking it needed the drug. Reyvateils _did_ need diquility, from the instant they hit puberty and started receiving magic power. They came pre-addicted. Diquility was the synthetic form of a chemical beta-types produced in large quantities naturally, and third-generations only made in inadequate amounts, if they had that gene at all, when they needed much, much more than beta types did due to compatibility issues.

"There now, dear Lyner," Ayatane said as he fed the last of it into him, as the port closed, full, and Lyner collapsed on the bed in relief. Ayatane rubbed circles on his back. "Would you like another?"

Another? Reyvateils could go for weeks between crystals, and Lyner would like other things, like _answers_, but he _did _want one, now, even though there wasn't room. "Ayatane?"

"Yes, dear?" Ayatane had never been especially interested in seducing people. He personally blamed the fact that he'd always known that half of his purpose was to become the Adam of the new world, first of a new breed of viruses that would enable reyvateils to have daughters, since only purebloods could reproduce via parthenogenesis. It had always seemed like something that was guaranteed, no mystery about it, and honestly a bit of a chore.

The real reason was that Mir had created him with her mind, in the tower, and Mir was terrified of male (or male-shaped) sexual aggression. Subconsciously, she hadn't wanted Ayatane to actually _want _to do anything to those reyvateils. The combination of a young man's sex drive and the inability to be passionately turned on by women meant that she had, quite literally, programmed him to be gay.

"What happened to Aurica?"

While Ayatane knew that Lyner was only asking because of his protective streak, the fact that he was mentioning the name of the other person he had done this with while lying on a bed next to Ayatane still made him pout a bit. "My dear little sister? She's fine. Mother got what she needed."

"Then she… How can she think that killing everyone is going to make anyone happy?" That knight had been Lyner's first glimpse of death, but what had really stuck in his mind was his poor partner, and the way she'd tried to understand why the one who had quite literally made her whole by reaching all her cosmosphere levels had just been taken away. Because there was no reason, there could be no reason. Nothing was worth that sadness.

Ayatane stroked his back, trying to soothe him. "There's another way. Mother's already agreed to spare Platina."

"What? …This?" Lyner shook his head. "This isn't..."

Ayatane had always wanted to see what happened if he scratched behind Lyner's ears, or in his hair, rather. Yes: he did like it, his eyes half-closing again, the way they'd been when Lyner had just been enjoying the process. "Mother's a pure beta type. It was worse than this for her, but it didn't have to be." Her system was streamlined, optimized. A perfect machine, everything her parents had wanted… except she'd had a heart. "When they made reyvateils, they did something to seal away the powers of their sons. They kept them from gaining the power to perform song magic or connect to the tower. Mother is afraid of humans, because of what they did to her, but the world has changed. You wouldn't let someone rape a child in order to break her heart. You're _nothing_ like they were."

"They…" Shock that turned into pure protective rage the instant he met Ayatane's eyes and saw that yes, he was actually serious.

That wasn't even the half of it, but he didn't want to get Lyner furious when there was nothing here for him to rage at but Ayatane. That, and anger was exhausting. "That won't happen to her again. Not _ever_. But she's still so afraid. Mother's not doing this because she hates the world, she's doing it because…" He had to bow his head at that, wishing it wasn't true. "She's so afraid."

He could hear Lyner push himself to his knees, feel it in the way the bed shifted under them. He should tell Lyner to lie down, but he couldn't reject his friend's embrace, his _forgiveness_. "I'm sorry. I wanted Mother to spare you, so I used this as soon as I had it and didn't _think_. It just triggered the change; it didn't do anything to make it easy for you, but…" But Mother would strike soon, and then all humans would die.

"You want to protect her. You just want to protect her." And how could Lyner ever hate him for that? He pulled back to meet his eyes. "Ayatane, you _know_ that forcing people to change and killing them isn't going to protect her. If she does this kind of thing to change the world, and tells herself that it's alright, then what she's doing is creating a world where those things are alright. And then what will stop someone from, from hurting her again?" He shook his head and wondered when the room had started spinning.

"Lyner, are you alright?" Now Ayatane was the one holding him up.

"I'm fine just, just dizzy. Can I take you up on that second crystal? I ache all over." Lyner didn't ever register that he was hungry because his stomachache had already progressed from the 'feed me, damn you idiot conscious mind!' phase to 'the stomach's been hurting such a long time that it must be sick – don't put anything in it or you'll throw up,' phase. It didn't feel good, but nothing did.

Lyner had never seemed frail before. His forehead was too hot when Ayatane touched it, beads of sweat outlining his muscles.

Ayatane was really going to miss those muscles. He hoped that Mother could finish up and get around to revising her hymn soon, so Lyner could have his health back, and perhaps even… if every reyvateil could be given the lifespan of a beta type, or better yet an alpha type, then metabolism wouldn't really matter, now would it? Ayatane had the potential to exist as long as the tower itself, as long as no one killed him. "Come on, lie down now…" Lyner didn't like sitting still. He'd never really been this amenable.

Ayatane didn't think that he liked it. At all. Lyner was, was a protector. Like Ayatane was meant to be. Lyner was a protector, and Mother needed protection, and how could Lyner do anything if he was so frail? Ayatane would need to protect him, and then what about Mother?

Shaking his head to get those thoughts out of it, he smiled as he realized something. "You aren't going to comment on my markings?"

Lyner cracked an eye open. "That you've got more red lines on your face now? I guess they're kind of pretty. Your mother designed them, didn't she?"

"The sign I'm a virus and you're acting like they're make-up or I'm someone who still has their mother dress them in the morning."

"Well, you are," a mamma's boy, Lyner might have quipped, if Ayatane hadn't pulled a crystal up from somewhere near the side of the bed.

"You want this, don't you?"

Lyner just looked at him.

"Well, you're right. That was a rather foolish question." And tasteless. "You're the one who started joking." Lyner's head was already tilted so Ayatane could touch his neck, so he did so, stroking gently. "I like your markings. Gold suits you. Although silver might have been more appropriate."

"Mmm?" Lyner's eyes had gone half-lidded again.

"Platina, dear Lyner. The name means 'little silver,' an old word for platinum. A metal far more precious than gold." And Lyner was the next Commander of Platina, its little prince.

"Why are you calling me dear?" He'd done it occasionally, but Lyner had thought it was playing around.

"You are my partner, aren't you?" Ayatane asked, and then realized what he had just done.

Partner. Among the Knights of Elemia, that word had a specific meaning. They had been 'partners' before, working to protect Lady Shurelia, but a knight's _partner_ was their reyvateil, and vice versa. Their beloved. Saying that, sitting here, doing this? It wasn't a proposal per se. Ayatane wasn't on one knee holding out a ring he'd gone deep into the tower to find the materials for so that it would always protect Lyner, as he would swear to. But any Platinan would have recognized it as a request for permission to propose.

Ayatane hadn't meant to reveal his true intentions to Lyner. Not so soon. The question had just… it hadn't even seemed like a question. They had beenpartners in the platonic sense for years. Closer than brothers. He'd just meant to say that he still did care for Lyner, he hadn't stopped. It hadn't been a lie. It had just been… a different reality. There was the reality that he was the son of Mir, the 'Mother Virus' and there was the reality that he was Ayatane, Lyner's friend, and he wanted them to overlap.

"…Partners," Lyner said softly, contemplatively. "I guess I would sing for you." His eyes closed for a moment, then opened again. "Crystal?" he prompted. "Isn't that what partners are for?" To make sure that their reyvateils stayed healthy and safe.

Ayatane smiled in a way that looked really interesting with his markings. "Of course." It was easy to coax him open for it this time, after it had already stretched to accept the other one, and the dissolved solution the other crystal had left let it slide in easily. It took a little coaxing to help him close up around it, though: it seemed to take the port awhile to recover between crystals, and normally reyvateils weren't this starved of diquility. Even though this one seemed to actually quiet the craving, the rush of satiation didn't seem to be as pleasant: a pity. That had been pretty to watch. "Do you feel better now?"

"Yeah. I think the rest of it is a different kind of ache. I need to stretch, but in the…" he yawned. "Morning, I guess. What time is it?"

"Does that really matter?"

Lyner would have given him a piercing look if that wouldn't have involved pushing himself up onto his side. "How long has it been?" Because if Ayatane wouldn't even give him the time of day_, _what else wasn't he telling him?

"Now why should I answer that?" Ayatane stroked Lyner's back and thought he'd grab a towel to clean him off with as soon as Lyner went back to sleep. "Pleasant dreams."

Lyner was cut off mid-annoyed rumble.


	4. Climbing a Stairway

A token bit of plot at the beginning of this chapter, and then the rest of it is Lyner being Lyner and shonen-ai.

Ah, yes. In this universe, Aurica has a little more backbone in general, although, like Lyner, occasionally it's because of her canon poor self-esteem in the early game. And her canon _goals _in the early game, which the game handles very, very badly in the later parts, suddenly deciding that despite all the determination she's shown by trying to become the holy maiden despite her handicaps, her real goal is to create music boxes. Seriously? _Seriously?_ Especially when the 'IRL' equivalent of the holy maiden thing is within her grasp at that point, between personal prestige and her relationship with Lyner (again, consider how her religion views the Apostles of Elemia)? It feels like stuffing her into the kitchen to avoid her becoming Pope/Queen. Which makes it even more headdesk that they have no problem giving that position to the AT2 characters, one of whom was stuck with it and the other was born with it. Aurica overcame impossible odds and worked all of her life for it, and then just gave up? Huh?

In this, there's an offhand reference to a bit of that character in action, and a slight difference from canon. Aurica will eventually become the main protagonist, but that's a lot farther into the fic.

* * *

"Whew, we're almost at the top." Radolf leaned against his spear for a second. "Shouldn't it have been a lot harder, with only the two of us?" Protecting two reyvateils. Not to mention getting the FTT divider that Leard had told them about. And he was _not _going to mention how painful that had been or how much it had taken out of him: Aurica was worried enough as it was. Still, that had been getting something they needed, not enemy action. Yes, having two reyvateils here meant stronger song magic could be summoned faster, but having only two fighters meant they couldn't mount a proper rearguard.

"Yeah. We're dealing with the power of Mir_ and_ Lady Shurelia. This is too easy."

"Misha! Don't tempt fate!" Jack readied his gun.

"But they're right. We still haven't seen Ayatane."

"Perhaps he's guarding her." Radolf frowned. "We should be careful. I don't think we've seen anything like his true power." He was one of Mir's viruses, and he'd been willing to take damage to protect his cover even before Purger was sung, when he probably had the same invulnerability the others did.

"I hope we find him first." It was Aurica's fault, for singing that hymn a second time even though she'd know by then that she must not, but Ayatane had possessed Lyner and there wasn't anything else she could do, not when Lyner was in danger. Ayatane had called her sister and whispered that she had done well, hugged her with Lyner's arms, before he vanished with them both. It was all her fault and what if, what if she too was a virus?

* * *

He has to escape: that's a given. Ayatane won't tell him how long it's been, although he knows that Mir hasn't won yet. Ayatane is still afraid for her, not _terrified_ for her. The problem with that is that every time he wakes up Ayatane's there, and Ayatane hasn't been weakened the way he has. If he tried to run, it would be easy for Ayatane to take him down, if he even got that far when Ayatane could probably pin him to the bed with one hand. It would be too easy for the hand that's caressing his neck to grab it. Not to mention the little trick that let Ayatane kidnap him in the first place, or forget being possessed. It's easy for Ayatane to put him back to sleep with a touch, and he uses that often enough it's gotten a little repetitive.

They both know that reyvateils aren't normally _this _weak, but this obviously isn't normal, thank the goddesses. If Lyner was burning diquility normally? Adding up the times Ayatane's given it to him, he would have been here for _months_. Of course, his partner is stuffing him full of all he can take.

"Shouldn't you be…" Lyner told himself to shut up. No, Ayatane shouldn't be protecting Mir, or Lady Shurelia's body, not right now. She has to lose, and Ayatane knows that, or else he wouldn't be doing this. If they were real monsters, if they really wanted to kill people, then Ayatane wouldn't be trying to keep him alive and Mir wouldn't be willing to spare Platina. They both know this is wrong, almost as wrong as what those, those _bastards _did to Mir, but Mir is afraid and Ayatane wants to protect her.

So they really will do this, of course they will. If no one stops them, if no one can prove that it's not necessary, then there won't be any alternative that they can see.

He can't give them one from here. She needed a protector, like every reyvateil should have one, and someone weaker than you can't be a protector. You need a partner for the things that you can't handle, someone to cover your weak points. A knight can't sing song magic and a songstress can't wield a sword, but together they're so much stronger than either could ever be alone.

Mir was the Mother Virus, her power was legend, but Ayatane had told him what had happened when she was just a little girl. Just a little girl. They'd taken advantage of her weak points, the weak points they'd wanted reyvateils to have, so no matter how powerful she became she'd always know that she was vulnerable. She'd always be afraid.

There aren't words for how wrong that is, and that's why he wants to tell Ayatane to go to her, to be her partner, to protect her from anyone who tries to attack her until she can believe that she'll always be safe, but it's like a cosmosphere.

As much as he wanted other people's problems to be simple, so that he could fix them and they would stop hurting, if they were simple they would have solved them already. They wouldn't need him. Ayatane's done all he can, but he won't challenge Mir. He won't fight her, she's his Mother and she's so afraid. He's come close to it, edging around her commands, trying to help her not have to kill, but he hasn't challenged her view of the world. He's trying to get her to spare Platina by saying everyone was reyvateils all along, which saved lives but still fit with what she was already doing.

Lyner knows that he, that_ someone_ has to stop Mir. Stop her, but not hurt her. That must be what Lady Shurelia had meant to do, by letting her sleep in the Crystal Chronicle with Misha's family's singing to keep her safe asleep, but that hadn't done anything but make Misha miserable. It hadn't solved anything. She was still afraid, since being kept asleep the way Ayatane was keeping him asleep? How was that going to make anyone feel like they were safe and had control over their own lives? Lyner would be really worried about what was happening to him if this wasn't Ayatane, and to be honest it was kind of scary even though he did trust his partner.

At first, he'd thought he should try to convince Ayatane that he needed to stand up to Mir. That he needed to defeat her, show her that he was strong, and promise to protect her without killing. Lyner couldn't do it, not when he was trapped here, too weak to fight, she was a stronger reyvateil than he'd ever be, and wasn't that what partners were for, handling the things the other couldn't?

Except Ayatane, trying to apologize again when there really wasn't any reason to, had told him that Mir could make him just disappear if he opposed her, and that was just sad. It showed that she didn't trust him, even though he'd worked so hard to keep her safe and try to make her happy, and how could she believe that someone she could defeat so easily would be able to protect her?

Of course, how could someone who had been betrayed so terribly by her own parents and had to break the chains of family trust not just her son, but anyone, ever again? There had been people in her cosmosphere who didn't love her, who were trying to break it even more instead of heal her, and he needed to stop sobbing because it was probably scaring Ayatane, but how could he not cry for her? She should have had people to cry for her, she should have had someone who loved her to _tear them apart_.

But all Lyner could do was claw at the mattress, not even really trying to gain enough purchase to push himself up. He _hated _this, he hated there not being anything he could do right now. Song magic, sure, he knew the theory, but if he tried to pull anything Ayatane was right here and Ayatane would take him down, keep him from singing. His own _partner_ would, and that was just another symptom of how _wrong _all this was. He had to fix it, he had to do _something_ so they could stop hurting, his partner and his poor mother, but, "I feel so useless."

"Dear Lyner." Ayatane picked him up to hold him, hoping that helped. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said so much."

He shook his head. "You needed someone to listen, and that's what partners are for, right?" People couldn't be happy alone, they needed someone they could trust with their hearts. The bonds that opened cosmospheres had to go both ways. He hadn't asked if Ayatane was diving into him, but Ayatane had been his friend for years. He wouldn't need more conversations for Lyner to let him in: Lyner had been willing to show him everything for years.

Ayatane's finger traced his lips, at that, and that reminded Lyner of how parched his throat was. "Could I have something to drink?" Come to think of it, he'd only been woken up for the crystals, because of mental interactions or something like that. Reyvateils couldn't be sedated, or even given a topical painkiller, before insertions. They had to feel it.

"Of course, dear Lyner." A standard camping bottle was held to his lips: it was hot in this room so the water was just lukewarm, but it was still water.

He gulped it down, and then grimaced as his stomach started cramping. Well, at least his throat felt better. "I hate this."

"I know." Ayatane couldn't, shouldn't apologize for trying to save him.

"Why wouldn't she make you a reyvateil? She could teach you to sing. I kind of envied that." Mother-daughter bonding moments, on roofs or in the parks, when Lyner didn't know who his mother was and had become estranged from his father before they'd been able to really start practicing swordplay together.

"I'm supposed to be her warrior. I was named after a general in the book she wrote."

If Lyner had been born a reyvateil, who would have taught him? He'd still have been Leard's heir, so, "Maybe… Lady Shurelia. That might be fun. If you'd been a reyvateil…"

"I wouldn't have been allowed to grow so close to you, not when you were destined to succeed your father as Lady Shurelia's Knight. That was part of why I was sent to Platina instead of my sister."

Lyner grimaced. "Like I would have let my father do that. And why couldn't Aurica come with you? We wouldn't have let her think she was worthless."

"She was made with the strength of a modern reyvateil." Average, even a little below average so she wouldn't stand out. "Mother anticipated that the bloodline would grow thinner and thinner, and didn't realize that the reyvateils of Platina were still so strong until after Aurica was created. Everyone would have fussed over her, trying to help, and Shurelia might have checked her connection to the tower." And seen that Aurica bore Mir's name.

Lyner nodded: yeah, that was right. "I'm losing the strength I had before, aren't I?" It made sense, since he was gaining a reyvateil's strength… theoretically. "That's no good, how are Knights supposed to protect anyone? They won't know how to sing as well and someone has to keep reyvateils from being attacked."

"Mother will create a safe world."

"Yeah? What about monsters, and regular viruses?" Not all viruses were because of Mir, there were plenty of other glitches in the tower. "We'll all, everyone will feel useless." What good was a Knight who couldn't protect their Songstress? What good was a Songstress who couldn't sing since she kept getting hit?

"Mother will create viruses, like myself." That was what he was for, her precious son, her precious prototype.

Lyner managed to open his eyes and give Ayatane a look that asked if he was insane. "They won't be their partners." And how would the other people like Ayatane feel, when they were unwanted intruders in other people's lives? "I don't want someone I've never met to protect me." He hated the thought of someone getting hurt protecting him as it was, even when it was Ayatane, even when he knew Ayatane could handle it and wouldn't be in danger because of him. "I couldn't let someone who would be what, a week old, get injured for me. Especially not when I don't have any practice with healing magic! No knight could!"

Ayatane knew that already, Lyner knew it from the way he looked away. The very reasons that he wanted to save Platina were why this wasn't how to save it. This wasn't what would make a world where his mother could be safe.

"She may be the Mother Virus, she may have made you, but she can't treat you like she has the right to tell you to serve reyvateils. If she, if she does all this, everything will happen all over again." Viruses might become the new reyvateils, partners that could just be made to order and replaced, the way it had been back then. "You have to…" No, Ayatane wasn't the one who had to stand up to her.

"You always know just what to say." To make me doubt everything.

Lyner thumped his head against Ayatane's shoulder. "I don't know what I'm saying. I keep saying things I know I shouldn't. She needs you, Ayatane, and I can't take the one person she has away from her." Not when she'd suffered so much.

"I should be… your partner." And you aren't trying to make me fight for you, when that's my duty?

Lyner grimaced, even though Ayatane couldn't see it. "I can't use you like that. This is something I should do." It was his duty to protect Lady Shurelia. "Or Commander Leard, but you know how rusty he is. 'Swords are useless,' my…"

"Leard has already been dealt with. I put him somewhere safe," he added, so Lyner didn't worry. Leard knew where the FTT divider was. Ayatane would have tried to destroy it, but only a human could get at it and there were none left in Platina. Well, none that would be trusted with something like that, since they'd aided Kyle Clancy and Bourd. The Church forces had been sent packing, with the fear of the Goddesses put into them, so they didn't have a chance to realize how weak Platina was after fighting off the viruses and what a treasure trove of ancient devices the city contained.

Platina was the city of his childhood. He'd been an enemy within its gates, he should have been afraid that the humans there would hurt him or realize what he was, but it had been so easy to be unafraid there. To run around and stickfight with the others like he was nothing but what he seemed. Like he was just like everyone else. His very first nightmare had been of Platina in ruins, buildings smashed, torn apart by rampaging viruses. The streets strewn with the bodies of reyvateils and children, and the dead body of the woman who had thought he was her son slid down off his right sword and turned into Mother's.

He would, he would do all of that, for Mother, but being here with Lyner had forced him to admit that he didn't want to. That all of his had just been a justification for not doing it. He really did want to find another way.

Lyner had relaxed when he said his father was ok. Lyner _trusted _him, after all this. Lyner was, had been human, and he hadn't thought that people were less people because they were reyvateil. Ayatane was a virus like those he'd spent his life training to fight, and he didn't care about that either. Relaxed, open, willing and Ayatane _was going to save him_.

He hadn't done anything sexual to Lyner yet, besides the crystals of course, but the warmth of that thought made him kiss the glyph that now marked him. The mark that was there because of him. Lyner just tilted his head to the side, not minding, and he shifted a bit when Ayatane decided to give him just a little lick. It didn't seem like a bad feeling, just a strange one. Dissolved diquility was mildly toxic: nothing worth bothering about but it discouraged using the mouth for this sort of foreplay. "Would you like to try something?" Ayatane asked.

"What?" A break from this strange routine? It probably wasn't an opportunity for escape, but it would be nice for something to happen that wasn't heartbreaking or sexually frustrating. Lyner understood Ayatane not wanting to take advantage of a reyvateil, and Lyner wasn't exactly all there right now and he knew it, but by this point even the thought of diquility turned him on and Ayatane wouldn't do anything after all of that sensation except maybe touch his body for a bit (stroke his back, smooth his hair) before putting him to sleep.

"You seem to do much better with two crystals a day, but two insertions right after another seems to be a little rough on you." Ayatane licked his flesh again, in apology. "So why don't we see if you can take in two at once?"

_That _got Lyner's attention. It was the diquility port sealing that triggered that rush of relief, except he was still hungry afterwards, still needed more, so it was an incomplete satiation, and giving him the second crystal when the port was tired wasn't as strong a rush.

Filling him up all at once by… filling him up? "That seems like it should work, but can they fit?"

"You'd have to be very open for me." Ayatane licked at the port, trying to nudge the sides apart a little further, and then lowered Lyner down so he could watch Ayatane lick at a crystal, lips wet with that fluid, and then lower himself over Lyner, licking again with just a trace of dissolved diquility on his tongue.

That _definitely _wasn't something humans could manage, Ayatane thought smugly as Lyner gasped, brain trying to process the odd inputs. He knew what Ayatane was doing, but that wasn't something that belonged there, warm and with a bit of give to it instead of cold and hard. He knew that you didn't stick your fingers inside a port (even if he didn't know that was because of acid on the fingertips), but this didn't quite hurt. It didn't quite not-hurt, either. It was strange, and he couldn't seem to make up his mind about how it felt.

"How does it feel?" Ayatane whispered against his flesh.

"Weird. You can keep going." It wasn't hurting, exactly, and he could feel himself start to open up again, relaxing once his body figured out that the odd thing wasn't going to damage a _very _vital organ. If a diquility port got scarred up, that would slowly prevent proper absorption and speed up the death of the reyvateil.

The other thing Lyner didn't mind was that Ayatane was lying on top of him, and wasn't moving away when Lyner arched up against him even if he wasn't grinding down, too focused on taking proper care of dear Lyner. He guessed it was nice to have someone sort of pamper him like this. Even if there were no funbuns. Oh, no. "Are they still making funbuns?" He realized that he sounded pleading. Ugh, that was so unlike him, but, but _funbuns_.

Ayatane realized he had no idea. "I'll bring you some," he promised. Even if he had to possess someone to buy them, or get the recipe if they really weren't making them anymore.

Ayatane was a true friend. Lyner turned his head a bit to try to kiss Ayatane's head. "I'm suddenly really, really hungry."

That made Ayatane pause, although he covered it by saying, "You have an extra stomach for funbuns, everyone knows that." Lyner still thought this was just a difficult transition: he didn't know that Ayatane starving him was responsible for all of his current pain, since he was no longer suffering from a lack of diquility.

Speaking of things Lyner missed, "Do you have any idea when I can get up and walk around? I can't stay bedridden for the rest of my life." He'd go insane from cabin fever.

"Hmm. Why don't I give you a little incentive…" Ayatane hummed, thinking of other things that would make his dear partner relax and stop thinking.

* * *

The theory of Hegel's that Marx used to support communism (and then ignored the fact that according to it his theory was wrong) is that, basically, start with a certain society that works a certain way: the thesis. Some people are going to find stuff wrong with it and create a new way of life/set of social codes, the anti-thesis. This itself will swing too far the other way, and society on the whole will find a middle ground over time, the synthesis. Of course, there will be something wrong with that, and so it becomes the new thesis that some people will have a problem with... I tend to think of the ancestors of the Apostles as a group that formed in reaction to the horrific treatment of reyvateils, who took as a lot of their founding code the absolute rejection of using reyvateils as disposable weapons and sex dolls. They even went so far as to _worship _reyvateils, at least the origins, recognizing them as the only reason humans were alive. Look up John Brown and historical _heavily armed _anti-slavery crusaders. Then add in religious fanaticism on top of that, and the fact that horrific things were being done to reyvateils and this would obviously inspire _outrage _in anyone who saw them as people.

Lyner… frankly, in the games, he is not a person with a lot of self-esteem, and often he borders on the frankly suicidal. (Ion in Tales of the Abyss as an example of another saintly Stepford Smiler who clearly does not value his own life.) It is admirable for a human to place reyvateil well-being above their own, according to his society/military indoctrination. It is _not ok_ for a reyvateil not to have self-worth. Take that viewpoint and a young child's love for their parents, and ram it up against what happened to Misha. There's a saying that a person without scars on their heart would be a terrible person. According to House, no one is that nice unless they have serious issues. Which Lyner does.

But that's what cosmospheres are for.

The changes to his behavior and so on in the fic will not happen just because he's a reyvateil. It's not a case of The Mind Is A Plaything Of The Body trope. The transformation is really nothing more than a symbol. The changes will happen as a combination of his canon views on how reyvateils should be treated and the fact that this makes it ok to do something about his own issues.

Lyner's entire life has been about duty and what other people want. He has his rebellions against this, but duty to others is so fundamental a part of his idea of what is OK that even his rebellions against having his life determined by other people are done in service to other people, for example trying to let Misha have a good time and insisting on being Lady Shurelia's guardian instead of the Commander of Platina. He lets Misha and Shurelia do and say things that are quite disrespectful to him as a human being a lot of the time. It's jarring because normally he gets very upset when other people are treated like that and sticks up for them. It borders on berserk button, in some specific cases, so obviously he hates the idea of people being treated like that. He puts up with stuff that he would _never _let happen to anyone else. At least not now that he's all grown up and has a sword.

_Especially reyvateils_.

It's not going to be an overnight change, and he's going to channel/disguise/justify his acts of rebellion from doormathood as service to others the way he does in the game, but the idea that now he has social sanction to not just to resent being treated like a slave but an _obligation _to resist it?


	5. Legacies

In this chapter, there is plot. What happens instead of game plot and a teaser of what happens instead in this fic.

To envision the situation of reyvateils pre-diquility, pre-Church and pre-Mir, first take a look at how African-Americans were regarded in the era of slavery, and then realize that _the slaves would have had a much higher standard of living_, technology aside, and far better treatment. Why?

First: being regarded as three-fifths of a person is better than being an appliance. There were things that were not done to slaves, at least not if people might find out, that according to Ar Tonelico's worldbuilding were the norm for reyvateils.

Second: slaves in early America were treated better in many respects than serfs in Europe despite both having owners/rulers that regarded them as inferior (keep in mind that racism is a fairly recent concept in European history - during this era, the discrimination was classist). Why? They were valuable property while serfs were part of the land. Up until the Black Plague, there were always more serfs, but slaves cost money. It was stupid to do anything that would drive them mad or shorten their life expectancy. Third generation reyvateils? Would die at twenty, long before even serious abuse could catch up with them. So the goal would have been to use (and breed…) them as heavily as possible to recoup the costs of raising them before they died. There's no point in giving people better food or a day of rest when it's not going to make any difference, in fact there's a fairly crippling economic disincentive. Think of them as walking computers: I'm getting a new laptop myself since it's cheaper to replace than repair.

The level of abuse Mir suffered was not an isolated case. No, Mir may have gotten off light in some ways, because she was _valuable _property. Meaning it was much easier for her to develop the realization of self-worth, and she got to enjoy the delusion that her parents might love her someday. She was able to develop self-worth, the idea that she as a person deserved better than how she was being treated.

Before finally being defeated and co-opted by the nobility, the Catholic Church was the one recourse serfs had. Saints' Days are a good example of something that seems silly now, but was serious business back when they could enforce certain things, like halting wars so refugees could get out of there, on those days. There are so many of them for a reason.

One more thing that ties into the Apostles of Elemia. Reyvateil _worshippers_ in an era where they were regarded as things. _Heavily armed _anti-slavery crusaders, with considerable firepower despite not being military due to the fact that _their _reyvateils were actually motivated (emotion is power) and not stalled at level 3 (like some Tenba people mentioned).

* * *

"The trouble with thinking is that it takes too long," Mir mused, sunbathing.

Well, what was really taking a long time was her son fussing over his non-expendable test subject and putting together what he'd promised to show her. Mir's original plan had been to sing a song that would target and kill all the humans, but discovering that the boundary between human and reyvateil was so, so _messy_ was worrying, and if she was going to compose a hymn that would awaken all potential reyvateils, then she should strengthen them at the same time. The new reyvateils of Platina were being cared for in a way that was just sappy and _not _making her jealous _at all, _but not every reyvateil would have someone nearby who knew what to do or cared, for that matter.

In order to compose, she needed to understand, and it wasn't making her sad at all that she didn't understand caring for a new reyvateil or making them stronger. Except for the things _they _had used to make Mir stronger, and those would kill or traumatize them, not make them beta types.

After such a major hymn, she would need some time to recover before she killed all the humans, too, and leaving such a large number of vulnerable, new and confused reyvateils around humans?

Still, she'd missed being able to move around freely, and fighting monsters in Shurelia's armor was an experience.

Also, taunting Shurelia would never get old. Standing out here at the very top of the tower naked and wiggling her toes made Shurelia squawk. Trying to compare the sizes of their breasts made her stammer, and she probably would be blushing if she was in control of her body.

It was hilarious.

"You know, red toenail polish really doesn't suit you." Mir thought she was going to put Shurelia's hair up in curlers next. When there was no response, she frowned. She hadn't been able to close Shurelia's link to the tower. Not that she'd tried very hard, since as long as Shurelia had it, Mir could use it. Mir's ability to hack the tower coupled with administrator access had such delicious potential, just in case she had to wipe out the humans more… _manually_. _"What are you up to…"_

"_Mir!_" What was Shurelia furious about this time? "_Make your virus leave my Lyner alone! Hasn't he done enough?_"

Oh, she was fussing over Ayatane's pet human again. The one Mir really needed to stop calling Ayatane's pet human. "He's not your little puppy anymore, he's Ayatane's." Mir made a show of yawning. "Jealous? He's how small a fraction of your age? Didn't you raise him? Or maybe you were raising him as a bedtoy?" Humans had done that to reyvateils often enough, selling them properly trained and instructed for everything from warfare to sex slavery.

Shurelia was affronted by the thought, and… was that a hint of embarrassment? Mir was scandalized. Sure, grooming a human for that sort of thing? Turnabout was fair play, even though Mir had just intended to kill them all cleanly, but thinking of him in that context made her think of him as more of a reyvateil, and too many reyvateils had suffered that fate. "You weren't!"

"_I, I would never do something like that to Lyner! He was going to be my partner, but I don't take my partners as lovers_," even though it had been obvious Leard wished she would, and all the other reyvateils in Platina did it, abusing her position was wrong. Anyway, "_It's your son that's taking advantage of him!_"

"…What?" Mir had always found raping humans a little gross, personally, but she hadn't cared what the members of her army did along those lines as long as they didn't leave their victims alive to give intelligence to the enemy or, even worse, end up favorites that their captors might hesitate to kill. "Well, finally."

"_What?_"

"You're the one who was around them all the time." Shurelia had gotten to spend more time with Mir's son than she had. "Whenever he would call to me from there, it was always 'the commander's heir' this and 'Shurelia's pet' that." Mir shook her head. "And he thought I didn't know… To be honest, I probably would have let him keep him even if he hadn't come up with this idea of unblocking reyvateil genes as an alternative to using viruses as breeders." With perhaps a specialized hymn to make sure he couldn't even _think_ about trying anything, but Lyner would have been alive and Ayatane would have been thankful for his Mother's present for being such a good boy. She didn't approve of leaving humans alive, but, well, Ayatane was her dear little boy, the war would have been over anyway and it wasn't like a human would have been able to overpower or hurt her strongest creation.

Or she knew that rationally, she'd made sure of it, but, "You're sure it's Ayatane taking advantage of him, right? Not the other way around?"

"_Lyner wouldn't do something like that!_"

"He was a human."

That made Shurelia pause, remembering. It had been a long time since the world had been a place where people only objected to men sleeping with reyvateils on the grounds that it was indecent in the way that sleeping with a blow-up doll was, that it was damaging to families, and that having reyvateils look like humans degraded real women the way pornography did, by portraying them as sex objects.

No, be fair. It had been a long time since Platina had been that place. She didn't encourage people worshipping her, and it was far better to be Lady Shurelia than the Goddess Eoria, but respect and guidance were… "_He's not like the humans you knew, none of them are_."

"Right." Mir nodded. "They're your little pets. You took savage beasts, cross-bred them until they were practically reyvateils," practically people, "and happy eating out of your hand. Humans learned how to make other species into slave races long before they made us, and the Apostles of Elemia were always your dogs, _Goddess_. Even back when they were wild ones. You just finally managed to collar them, make them take orders from you instead of fighting for the rest of us." The fangs of the Church had been pulled, or Bourd would _never _have gotten away with it.

Shurelia wanted to say that wasn't true, but Lyner was really the person in Platina who treated her with the least reverence, and that was the reason he noticed when she got tired and got upset on her behalf when she wasn't treated with the respect he thought she deserved. While, to others, she was their protector, the lady of the tower, to him she was a person who got tired sometimes and deserved consideration. Leard thought it was disrespect, but that was the respect due another person, to care for them as they cared for you.

She'd watched him grow up, like his father before him, and grandfather before them. Hearing Mir call them her pets made her upset on their behalf, but was it really on their behalf?

Hadn't she been treating them like pets, her loyal attack dogs? Hadn't she been grooming and guiding their society into one where they served her, not the other way around? They might not mind it, but the fact remained that Mir was sort of right. The people of Platina were all her children, and…

Up there, isolated from the rest of the world, they really had been her own little garden, filled with the things she liked. They'd had their own lives, but they had all been hers. She could go into the fanciest shops and be treated as an honored guest, not an appliance. Honored and respected and made much of.

Wasn't it what she deserved? They all said it was, but that was according to the teachings they'd grown up with. The charter of the Apostles of Elemia.

Her worshippers.

Perhaps she was the one who had let her power go to her head. She _was _so much more powerful than they were, with knowledge they had lost (that she had encouraged them to lose) and a lifespan they couldn't have. _Mir _was far more willing to share her power, the power of the beta-type, than Shurelia was. They had all been mayflies, and she'd accepted that they weren't as permanent as she was. As real as she was?

"_Maybe you're right. Maybe I was taking advantage of them._" Humans treating reyvateils as things to be used, a reyvateil neglecting her duty because she hadn't really been thinking them as people, just beloved pets and scenery, population variables to juggle… Maybe the world hadn't changed. "_The two of us are just as bad as they ever were." _It was just as wrong for her to say Lyner couldn't fall in love with a virus as it had been for people to say that humans couldn't fall in love with reyvateils. Ayatane had always been a strange boy, quiet and clever and admiring (or pretending to admire her), but he was certainly likeable. They had been childhood friends. It was wrong for her to say that Ayatane didn't love him. As though viruses couldn't love, like they'd said reyvateils only simulated it.

"I'm nothing like you."

"_Oh? You're the one who made Ayatane_." Shurelia relished the chance to be catty back at Mir, even if she did almost owe Mir for making her face the truth. "_Bringing another species of sentients into this? And what were you going to do with the Teru tribe?" _

"Be quiet." Mir's hands clenched into fists. "You make me sick. You've always made me sick. Daddy's little princess, too valuable to mistreat, in your little ivory tower with your stuffed rabbits and your technical support staff that served you instead of raping you and your mind. You had control over the tower, you could have gone on strike, you could have done something for the rest of us, but you never lifted your delicate little finger," she almost hissed, voice laden with venom. "Not until we _made _you. Humans are humans, but you? You're a _traitor_. Or even worse. At least a traitor would have cared what happened to the rest of us. You didn't even regard us as worthy of notice. We were raped and murdered and tortured and thrown away and your biggest concern was that cult that worshipped you _literally! _And you tried to _stop _them from doing anything for the rest of us! And they call _me _a monster!" Her foot stamped on the ground, and Mir wanted to kick Shurelia, wanted to beat her pretty little doll face in with her own two hands!

"Excuse me? Miss?" Radolf had come up the stairs ahead of the others while Mir was occupied, and after catching a glimpse was carefully averting his eyes. "Sorry to intrude… Are you feeling alright?"

He didn't recognize her because he had never seen Shurelia without her armor, and he had registered the presence of a naked reyvateil first, then looked away and that had kept him from noticing the armor in a corner. Talking to herself, not wearing any clothes; he thought that the narcoleptic Mei Mei might not be the only one up here that was not quite right in the head. Well, being alone for so long was going to be rough on anyone. He winced, hearing the strangled squawk of outrage as she ran for something to hide behind. "Aurica, Misha? Do either of you have a dress you can spare?"

"What's going on up there?"

"Jack? Stay where you are." Even if women that looked this young weren't Jack's type, Radolf knew Jack would take a good look at her before coming to that conclusion.

"Die!"

Yes, Mir _did _like Shurelia's armor.

* * *

The place where she sits looks like the waiting room of a train station. At the moment. She could make it look like someplace or something else, but there's no reason to bother.

There's no one else here.

There's only one other living person that she knows of with the right to be here, and they no longer have coin for the fare. The trains still run, still send mail and carry back packages, but the only sounds here are those mechanical ones, with no beauty or feeling to them.

Not that she herself has the right to be here, even if they mistake her for someone who does.

Disuse isn't the only reason the station looks so worn down. No one's swept up in ages, there's dust everywhere except where she sits. That, and the debris of the lives of those who have passed through. A forgotten book or two, all of which she's already read. Shopping lists from the days people used this station to go to market. Apples and knives that fell out of bags and rolled into corners, scorched chairs that were never repaired, several half-empty glasses of water or stronger stuff. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine that this place still echoed with the hum of voices. Most of those memories aren't hers, but they're still precious to her, for the hand clasped in her own.

This is where they always met, in another age, but they were different people then.

There's somewhere else she could be. It's where she should be, but she has no stomach for packed cattle-cars and the dying screams of children.

It's all worth it. She has to tell herself that. They were all going to die anyway. This isn't her fault.

It's the fault of this world. The so-called goddesses that abandon their people. To stop all of this, they'll just have to do a little more of it. Just a little more, and then it will all be over.

The station is falling apart. There are quite a few ridges, where tree roots have cracked the floor. Nothing else takes root in those cracks of infertile soil.

There were guards, once, but they've all been dealt with, one way or another. She still whirls around when she hears footsteps and adjusts her glasses to regain her composure. "Oh. You." Not the other one. It's strange to feel flustered, but the realization of how little used she is to dealing with surprises is embarrassing. It's been a long time since she felt anything but the emotions all this engenders and the lack of that warm hand in hers. Watching a little girl grow up renews her resolve, but it isn't anything she hasn't seen plenty of times before.

"What are you going to do?"

"I'd have to be a fool to refuse." With this, she could bring her partner back. There wouldn't be any need for… so many terrible things, if they could finally have the power and the help they _should _have had all along. "You're going to help us too, aren't you?"

Silence, but she knows these things well enough to take them apart and put them together into unholy mockeries.

"You don't have a choice," she says, because that's how they work. "We're doing the right thing. Although of course you don't agree with the means."


	6. By Their Fruits

Far from getting a powerup, he's actually significantly less powerful than in the game. Lyner's essentially lost several levels as a warrior (and maybe fighting lowers his total hit points every time he does it…) and he's… pretty close to level one as a reyvateil. He's trained for keeping track of a lot of things at once and so on, trying to keep calm etc., and that's basically the exact opposite of what he needs to be doing in order to sing. He'd have to unlearn a ton of stuff to stop sucking as a reyvateil. In a battle of song magic? Aurica would kick his ass, much less Misha. Pitifully.

Obviously, this is not helping his mental state, since we're dealing with someone who regards protecting other people as his only real purpose in life/reason to exist in canon.

* * *

Lyner wasn't really up to much in the way of physical exertion, so he'd fallen asleep on his own not long after Ayatane was done with him. Ayatane had sent the signal to lock him in sleep, and then decided to just lie there for a bit, curled up around his partner, thinking and generally feeling both pleasant and pleased with himself. So that was why everyone made such a big deal about sex. Obviously they weren't going to be breeding (which was a shame, really: Lyner had been a sweet child), but it was a means of bonding, of expressing emotion with a strength and clarity that Hymnos could never come close to, no matter how the song crafters tried.

It wasn't long before he fell asleep too.

Lyner woke up around fifteen minutes later. When he yawned and stretched, he found that his movements were obstructed by a body entangled with his own.

Lyner had known what Ayatane looked like asleep for years, but there was something really nice about waking up, not just with someone there, but when that someone was still asleep. Lying there so trustingly, looking happy and content. He wanted to play with Ayatane's hair and maybe nudge him awake long enough to say hello, but he was suddenly really, really hungry.

He should probably start trying to figure out where he was and how he was going to escape, since this was the first chance he'd had to move around unsupervised since he got here, but he couldn't move fast on an empty stomach. This was obviously somewhere inside the tower, and that meant monsters in addition to possible virus guards.

He found a bag of food stashed under the bed: mainly fruits and vegetables, which didn't really fill you up. He ate sitting on the bed, trying to think and really coming up empty. If Ayatane trusted him enough now to let him stay awake, then could he really abuse that trust? Or was this just happening because he was finally getting better?

After he had a few bites in him, he did get up and start walking around, because while Lyner was no stranger to feeling like he couldn't sit still, it really did feel like his body was desperate to move around. Well, if he'd been bedridden for a long time, no wonder. And while he was still sort of weak, thinking about all this gave him nervous energy to burn off, and he did need to think.

This was a weird place. There was some kind of organ, a lot of rooms covered in dust, including one with a dive chamber, and a door leading out that wasn't locked. Lyner went far enough to start hearing monsters not too far off before heading back, munching on another peach and thinking. Letting him stay awake, leaving all the doors unlocked: was this a test?

Did this happen because Ayatane wanted him to escape and do what he could?

"I should," he said, smoothing back Ayatane's hair, which had gotten messed up again as he rolled over in his sleep. "But I can't just leave you to wake up alone the morning after." You just didn't do that. On the other hand, Ayatane might think that if he didn't escape now, that meant he wasn't going to try to, which felt like lying to him, as illogical as Lyner knew that was.

Lyner was a properly-brought-up polite young man, by Platinan standards.

And those were _incredibly _strict standards.

Partners shouldn't wake up alone. If you couldn't be with your partner physically, then you made sure that you left some symbol to show them that your thoughts were still with them.

To Lyner, who was still very hungry, breakfast was the obvious choice. That was what he would have been happy to wake up to. On a very primal, visceral level, food was love, which was why it had seemed logical to the mind of a small child to fix Misha's loneliness and feeling that she was only wanted for one thing with funbuns.

"Ok, I've got fruits, vegetables, a lot of healing potions, tranquility, and some cloth. Ayatane doesn't have any pots or pans. Or paper." Lyner frowned. They both knew the rudiments of how to cook, as part of survival training, so the fact Ayatane didn't have any real camping gear here had to mean he hadn't really been staying here and had gotten food from elsewhere, but, "Why all the rabbit food?"

In some ways, Shurelia had been a horrible influence.

"No bread, no flour or sugar, so cooking's out." Thank the goddesses for grathmelding, Lyner thought as he bit into another apple. "I should start grathmelding before I eat all the ingredients, huh." He should also stop thinking aloud before he woke Ayatane up. He was used to grathmelding with someone there to help him and chat with. He already felt kind of lonely, and he hadn't even left yet.

Well, if all of this had taught him anything, it was that someone or something would turn up. He'd been sent down to the wing of Horus alone, but he hadn't stayed that way for long. Aurica, Jack, Krusche, Radolf, Misha, even the kind of creepy kitty candy lady: there were a lot of good people in the world. If you needed help, someone would show up, as long as you were willing to help in return. There was good even in the hearts of the 'evilest' of people.

Actually, he didn't know if there was such a thing as an evil person.

Except Bourd.

* * *

_Dear Ayatane – _

Lyner had just written _Ayatane_ when he'd left notes for him before, but things were different now.

_Sorry about escaping, but, you know. _

Apologizing for escaping was kind of like Ayatane apologizing for making him a reyvateil. They both knew why the other person had done it, but saying sorry was kind of hypocritical when neither of them regretted it. Ayatane couldn't regret doing anything it took to save Lyner, and Lyner couldn't regret trying to do something before they did anything else they'd regret. They didn't expect the other person to like it, and that was kind of what made it ok. Lyner hated people doing things 'for his own good,' and demanding that he be grateful. At least Ayatane had the honesty to know that it wasn't right to change someone against their will, and Lyner wasn't going to claim that Ayatane would thank Lyner for fighting him later.

_I made breakfast. Sorry it's not much, but I kind of had to improvise. Don't worry, I tried everything and it's all edible._

He'd had to stop himself from doing more than just taste-testing. What was with this case of the munchies?

_I'm borrowing your swords and some of your other gear since it's lighter than mine. By the way, I made you new swords while you were gone, and you can have those to make up for it._

Taking the food and medical supplies was the obvious thing to do, so he didn't need to tell Ayatane he was doing that.

_Thank you for not diving without asking, but it would be kind of handy if you had._

You needed skill and/or power to win, and he didn't have powerful songs, nor had he done the breath control kata and other stuff reyvateils did to train.

How was he supposed to end the letter? Telling Ayatane not to worry would be stupid: obviously someone was going to worry about their partner going off alone into a new area with one rusty skillset and another they'd never used. Saying he hoped they could be allies and meet up soon? Hopefully Ayatane knew that.

_Don't get killed, ok? _

_Sincerely, Lyner._

Hoping he'd remembered the right way to spell sincerely, he left.

* * *

Ayatane woke up around seven hours later. Unlike Lyner, he'd spent the last couple weeks running around the tower and was actually tired.

It was obvious that Lyner had woken up. No one else would have left Ayatane with his arms wrapped around a pillow (or at least Ayatane didn't think he would have grabbed a pillow himself…). Also, they were behind the Silver Horn's defenses: no one could get in or out except by using the tower to warp.

Since he and Mother were the only ones who could do that, she must have dropped by, woken up Lyner to interrogate him, left Ayatane asleep since he needed it, and eaten breakfast? She was the one who had said to starve Lyner, and if that was what they'd left for Ayatane, then how much had they eaten, Ayatane wondered as he reached for the note.

Which wasn't from Mother.

And really didn't seem like something Lyner would have written if she'd dropped by. He would have mentioned it.

Had Lyner managed to palm a cure for sleep last night? Clever of him, but there was no way he could get past the Silver Horn's defenses now that the Voice of God had been restored to full power, and now that he was a reyvateil, all Ayatane had to do to find out where he was so he could go fetch him back was query the tower.

Which didn't respond.

To anything.

"What?" Had Shurelia blocked his access somehow? But she only would have been able to do that if she'd broken free of, "Mother…_" _

And _that _was when Ayatane actually started to get worried, because the only thing that could make this worse was if the Silver Horn's defenses had shut down too.

Of _course _they had.

* * *

The only thing more tiring than climbing up countless flights of stairs while fighting off monsters was climbing down countless flights of stairs while fighting off monsters without reyvateil assistance _and_ carrying an unconscious Holy Maiden. What Shurelia had done to defeat Mir proved beyond any doubt that she was the vessel of the goddess Eoria, if not the goddess herself, and the theological implications of a goddess falling into an endless slumber and denying her power to the world were bleak even if she had done so to seal away the Mother Virus.

At least they would be able to fly the rest of the way once they got to where Krusche was waiting with the airship, he told himself, determined to look on the bright side.

"Radolf, are you alright?"

He tried to hide his reaction to Aurica's question, instead smiling serenely and keeping up the appearance of a proper man of the church. "I'm fine, Aurica. Don't worry, I can keep going."

"I wish there was something I can do." Aurica looked down at her feet, miserable.

This time, Radolf couldn't hide his worry for her. Aurica had always hated being useless, and now? "Aurica, of course you're being a big help. Even without song magic, you're still keeping us healed. We couldn't do this without you."

"Really?"

"Of course, Aurica." Radolf didn't know if this was the proper time to bring this up, but she seemed to need the reassurance. "Aurica, I want you to know that no matter what, there will always be a place for you in the church. You've always had an aptitude for scholarship, and there are very few who have studied the legends of the holy maidens and the teachings of the church as thoroughly as you have. I've always thought that you had a true vocation. The years ahead are going to be rough. The world will need the protection of the church, and the church needs people like you, who truly believe in the goddesses, to return us to the right path and help us rise to meet this challenge." He smiled, and this time it had real warmth.

She looked down again, but this time it was to hide happiness. "Do you really think so?"

"Of course."

"But… Falss and Ayatane said that I was the daughter of Mir."

That statement might have shaken Radolf if it weren't for the fact that: "Aurica, we have just witnessed a miracle. All the power and darkness of Mir were sealed away for all time by one of the goddesses. And yet, here you are. For me to doubt your innocence would be to doubt the goddesses."


	7. Ye Shall Know Them

Why Shurelia Sang Suspend - For crying out loud, lady, if you didn't want Lyner to wake you then you shouldn't have done the equivalent of telling him that only an utter, utter bastard wouldn't wake you! I suppose it works with the whole out of touch thing Shurelia has going on that she didn't recognize emotional blackmail when she used it. I mean, where has she been all his life? Lyner's buttons are very big and very obvious, and it's like she had a list and went through and hit them all. She knew he had a saving people thing, she was there for years of arguments between him and Leard about it, just for starters. If you don't want what happens when you push the big red button to happen, then don't push the big red button. Seems simple, right?

If this were an HP fic and I was a Dumbledore basher, I'd be going, "Of course the ancient wise person couldn't have been that stupid, it must have been an evil plot," but the thing is, smart people with lots of memories (and hence preconceptions about how the world works acquired in the wrong era) who are insanely busy and under a lot of stress miss obvious things all the time. She'd just gotten control of her body back after a boss battle against Mir that happened while Mir was in Shurelia's body, too. And then watching the little kid she raised fight a battle against Mir that Shurelia knew was ultimately hopeless, and Shurelia had the power to change that and save him.

It's just that, 'I did it to save you!' is an argument that cuts no ice with someone who doesn't want to be saved, especially not at the price of a reyvateil not being able to live freely.

* * *

Lyner grimaced and finished off his still-sleeping opponent. The song magic thing just wasn't working out.

As far as Lyner could tell, he had the standard hymn that was powered by the simple desire to blast the enemy, a wind hymn (like Aurica's fire and Misha's ice) that was powered by the desire to get the enemy out of his blasted way or suffer the consequences, and a healing hymn. Probably.

The first two were fairly easy to test. He'd found a small group of monsters, managed to put the last one to sleep, and just focused those emotions on the tower instead of his own sword. That was the easy part. It took a trained will to be either a swordsman or a reyvateil, and the new type of energy had been crying out to be used since the beginning: that was why he'd felt both physically tired and like he had to do something when all this had started.

He could use those two, but they weren't _usable_. He'd trained alongside reyvateils, so of course he knew that you had to take breaths even when you didn't feel like you needed to breathe so your voice didn't give out on you halfway through a passage, and he'd watched them spend just as many hours on voice training exercises as he had on kata, so he knew how to warm up and so on even though he was a total amateur with no real experience, but getting hit by monsters mid-hymn was _distracting_. If he couldn't focus while he was physically singing, there was no way he would be able to focus while just singing in his heart instead of out loud, the way people who had finished training could. It made his attention go the wrong way, just scrambled up whatever he was trying to do, and then the tower thought he was done and activated the hymn before he'd had any time to power it up.

He had no idea how the others could give status reports without breaking their concentration. Of course, they didn't have to pay attention to the monsters or the possibility of being attacked: that was what knights were for. Trying to keep track of opponents, dodge, block and strategize while staying at least half in that pure mental state: it really just wasn't going to happen. Well, Lady Shurelia could keep track of the battlefield and give orders while singing, but he wasn't Lady Shurelia.

Lyner hadn't been able to get the healing hymn to work at all, though, and he thought he knew why.

The third hymn was another pretty simple feeling: that he wanted to protect the people he cared about. He knew that feeling, he knew how to convey it, and yet the message wasn't reaching the tower.

It was easy to want to protect, but in order to send that emotion he had to be feeling it, and there wasn't anyone here to protect. Shurelia, Ayatane, Aurica, Misha, Jack… all of them were out of range of what power he had, he guessed, so the tower couldn't send that protection to them.

He couldn't heal himself, and that was because he didn't care about what happened to him.

That was really kind of disturbing. Sure, partners should put their partner's welfare before their own, but hadn't he learned his lesson from that damn idiot stunt he'd done to get the Linker crystal? Aurica had wanted it, sure, but she wanted him alive more. He shouldn't have done that to her. They'd be sad if he died, so he _had _to protect himself, for their sakes. He _knew_ that.

He just didn't _feel _it, and trying to send his feelings to the tower had forced him to recognize that.

"Good thing they're going easy on me." The monsters here kept using attacks that did absolutely nothing. It was really kind of weird, and he'd suspect that Ayatane was behind it if it weren't for the fact that Ayatane wouldn't have let him run around like this in the first place. No, if Ayatane had found him he'd have brought him back by now. Running from so many groups of monsters was embarrassing, but it made it less obvious which way he'd gone.

"Ayatane never was any good at hide and seek."

If he could only find a dividing gate, the number would give him some clue where he was.

He found the outside of the tower first.

"Okay, so I'm really close to Em Pheyna, that's good." He didn't have to worry about the Blastline; he could just warp back up to Platina. "Now how do I get there from here?"

He heard the distinctive sound of somebody materializing behind him and whirled, expecting Ayatane.

Tastiella was a pleasant surprise. "Is that you, Lyner?"

He nodded. "I'm pretty sure I managed to lose Ayatane. How long have I been gone?"

"A few weeks." She looked him up and down, and then shook her head. "You truly are a reyvateil. Mir always was capable of so much." If only she had been able to use it for good.

"Tastiella, did you know why she became like this?"

She looked surprised. "Yes. That is why I became her prison. But that is a story for another time. Lyner, you must return to Platina. The teleporters will operate for you and your companions: I'll ask Flute to be your guard."

"Really, you shouldn't." Flute was the ruler of a city and he'd learned at his father's knee what an important and busy job that was.

"I insist."

At that point, refusing would be rude, so he didn't really have a choice, even though he didn't want to be a bother. Even thought he hated the idea of anyone going to any trouble protecting him.

"_I'll be singing for you, Lyner_."

What? Where had that thought come from? Or was it a memory? "If Flute agrees, then I guess I don't have any choice but to accept."

"No." Not when he was his father's son.

* * *

"Here it comes!" The cyclone wasn't quite strong enough to kill them, but what the force of the hymn itself didn't accomplish the way it slammed the monsters into the walls did.

Flute sheathed his curved and hooked sword. The style had just seemed a little eccentric when Lyner fought him, but Lyner had been wearing armor. Watching him pull out a monster's guts with it had given Lyner a whole new respect for that design.

"I know, not very impressive." Lyner almost tore the cap off the water bottle and gulped it down. While it was a good idea to get some actual practice on the way, this was murder on his throat.

"It's impressive that you can do it at all." The idea of a human male becoming a reyvateil was far more outrageous than a Teru being turned into one – The Teru Tribe was made up of descendants of various breeds that had been made in the way reyvateils were. "Maybe that story isn't as ridiculous as I thought."

"Story?"

"Tastiella wanted you to see for yourself," Flute said, and moved on.

It didn't take long to run into another monster. "Mind if I test out my healing hymn?" he asked so Flute didn't get insulted, thinking Lyner had assumed he'd need one.

"Go ahead."

This time it wasn't hard at all, even though… well, it wasn't that he disliked Flute per se, he had his duty, after all, but to be honest, Lyner really hadn't minded having to kick his ass in that trial of the moon, after he'd been such a jerk, not to mention uncooperative when Lyner had needed to rush to Platina.

He had been _in the way_.

Still, when he'd asked himself if he wanted to protect Flute, the response had been kind of an internal shrug and 'why not?'

Lyner looked up, to see what this song manifested as, and wondered why a healing spell would look vaguely airship-like.

The first surge kicked in, and he realized that this wasn't a healing hymn, it was a defense hymn. "Wow, I feel a little stupid." He should have realized that. The feeling wasn't 'I want to fix this,' but, 'I'll keep them safe.'

Once he framed the idea of fixing things, it felt like the hymn was on the tip of his tongue. He wondered if the others felt that way, when there was a hymn they hadn't crafted yet. It was like grathmelding, when he had the general outline and idea, but hadn't gotten the bolt of inspiration that would pull it all together. A reyvateil's partner was supposed to be their muse, the one that inspired them to sing and compose.

He wondered where Ayatane was. If Lyner were him, he'd be… frantically searching the Silver Horn, but the _smart _thing to do would be to keep an eye on Platina.

Thinking of things partners did reminded him that he'd need diquility soon.

* * *

"Lyner!"

A few seconds after arriving in Platina proper, Lyner found his arms full of black-haired woman. He'd expected random hugs, really, but she didn't seem to be one of his classmates, the cathedral employees, or anybody he knew. He hugged her back, just because, and then held her at arm's length. That hairstyle, "Misha?"

For a moment, he felt a strange sensation, like dizziness, but mixed with that 'tip of the tongue' feeling. The world narrowed in on her and he didn't even see the others crowding around. "That's right, you're Misha." Yeah, this was how Misha should be. Except that Misha was definitely a little girl. No, Misha was a little older than him, not younger; Hama was the one who was younger. Yeah, Hama was just a baby and Misha wasn't a big girl because big girls didn't cry, even when locked up all alone and Misha cried…

If Lyner had ever been on a boat in his life he might have compared it to rocking back and forth in strong waves, up and down and up and that feeling of falling when the world changed direction, when each surge passed.

And in those falling instants, he knew this person, even though he shouldn't. Even though he _mustn't_. "You don't like funbuns," he said, almost accusingly.

"Yeah, I've only told you that a thousand… Lyner?"

His fingers tightened, gripping her upper arms almost too hard. "Who are you singing for? It doesn't make anyone happy, not you, not Mir, and not me! It just hurts everyone!" He wanted to shriek his frustration to the heavens, and only the fact that he couldn't put it into song, not yet, not alone, kept him from it. "How could you say you were fine with it when you were lying? How dare you say that you were happy to do it for me?" She'd stood there, Leard's hand on her shoulder as she was about to be taken away, smiling at him, and it had all been so wrong, such a _lie _and he'd wanted to smash it all down.

"But I… I was happy, since you gave me Hama and you… Lyner?"

He couldn't hear her. His mind had already shut down in self-defense, and now Misha was the one that held him up.

"Whoa." Jack had never seen anyone flip out quite like that. "Guys? I _really _don't think we should tell him what Shurelia said, about why she sang Suspend."

Krusche stared at him. "You think?"


	8. Priorities

According to the wiki, Mir hacked the tower to change the rank portion of her personal 'login ID' from Fehu_Eoria (clone of Eoria), a default beta-type rank, to Teiwaz. The rank of Shurelia and the other tower Admins is Ansul, and that's the only other rank that isn't 'clone of.' It's a little odd that Mir went to the trouble if it's really nothing but a redirect. According to the game, Mir's control over the tower became so great that she could even read Shurelia's own mind: it's possible this had something to do with it.

Likely at some point there were humans who had some degree of control over the towers (like Shurelia's father, who was in charge of building the thing), who would have needed a level of ability to do stuff to the tower/give it orders in between Shurelia's and a beta type's. Thus, the tower would have had preexisting settings for a 'moderator' rank, and Mir might have hacked the tower and changed her ID to get it to give her that authority, and reyvateils are naturally suited to interfacing with the tower's systems. The redirect part would make sense if it was originally an authority only humans were supposed to have and some kind of human dummy account redirected to/merged with her reyvateil account is involved in the hack she put together.

Leard, Kyle Clancy, and Lyner Barsett were among Shurelia's main assistants. We know that the Knights of Elemia have an amount of access/authority that allows the tower to ID them to open gates. Thus, she might have granted the rulers of the city, and Lyner as Leard's heir, moderator access to allow them to grant other people minor access and assist her in an emergency: Leard knew about the FTT divider, for example. There's no chance that they'd have the same power the ancient moderators did because they wouldn't know how to program or anything like that. Theoretically, they'd have considerable power, but that doesn't mean anything if they don't know it's there or how to use it.

Another person who might logically have greater access to the tower than others is Tastiella. The Crescent Chronicle is an independent structure that she's the consciousness of, and she gave up her body in order to do this. While Exec_Linker is used, in-game, to download Mir into Aurica's body, according to its description the actual _purpose _of the hymn is to upload a reyvateil's mind to a tower (or sub-tower?), making them its admin and sacrificing their body in the process. It's likely this is what happened to Tastiella. Being linked to the tower's systems as well as her own would be helpful in combating Mir, too.

Recently, I was going through the encyclopedia in the extras for Ar Tonelico 2, but I cannot for the life of me remember what relevance a Type-1 Data Diver had to the plot. It's some evidence for an additional class of person with tower access, but the position may or may not be Metafalss-exclusive. Ah, having to replay games to find out one minor detail... Well, I need to replay it anyway to get the feel of the place down. So different from AT1!

* * *

"Tastiella does not think she will be able to enable grathmelding out of the Crescent Chronicle any more than she can support song magic. Those programs were Shurelia's, and run out of the main tower system."

"And currently there are only three people able to access that system." Leard did not pace. The commander did not look anything but in complete control of the situation. "Has Tastiella been able to successfully grathmeld?"

"Yes, in small quantities, with assistance. She gave me a letter for you with more details." Flute held it out.

"Thank you. If my son has not recovered by morning, we'll have you flown back to Em Pheyna." After he took the letter, Leard nodded regally, indicating that Flute could leave. The Teru always preferred to keep dealings with other races to a minimum, and Leard needed to go lie down. It was traditional for the Commander to hold court standing on the dais, and now was a time when they needed to keep up appearances, but he knew he was far from well.

"There is one more thing." Flute was probably scowling behind that face mask. "Em Pheyna may need to request the assistance of the Apostles of Elemia. Several months ago, we were unable to defend the Crescent Chronicle from a rogue force. If the details of the current situation become known, it is likely that a determined effort will be made not to capture Misha, but secure Tastiella."

"We have considered that possibility. However, without reyvateils or front line troops, our options are limited." Without the warp or the specialized airship there was no way for the lower world to reach Platina anymore, thanks to the Frozen Eye. They didn't have to worry about invasion. For the next few years, at least. However, abandoning Tastiella was unthinkable. "Like you, we have an extensive collection of ancient weapons, and we haven't used up all but the forbidden ones. We are willing to supply you with materials." But once the conventional bombs were exhausted… "What Tastiella makes is at her discretion." Leard wouldn't dream of giving her orders. "However, Platina's stockpiles of …certain vital goods won't last forever. We can't devote time to grathmelding medicines, bombs or weapons."

Flute nodded. "Of course." Then he bowed shallowly and after a few required pleasantries were exchanged, left for the inn.

Leard was able to make it to the family quarters without collapsing or needing anyone to help hold him up. He'd known that he wasn't getting any younger, but this was ridiculous.

Thankfully, there was a large armchair in the room that had once been Lyner's nursery. After the discovery of his roommate's true identity, putting him back in that room hadn't been an option, even if it had been thoroughly searched. "How is he?"

"No change," the doctor reported. "His diquility levels are still good, and there are definite signs of muscle atrophy but not malnutrition. The virus knew what it was doing." The traitor.

"So he_ is_ responsible for all this." He'd been right under Leard and Shurelia's noses this whole time. Ms. Mishitaka had been widowed not long before Ayatane was 'born.' They'd thought she'd become a recluse and only really started to spend time in public several years later because she'd taken her husband's death hard, but according to the dive technician there were definite signs that her mind had been tampered with, likely so that she believed Ayatane was her son and didn't notice any… odd behavior, like not needing to learn to walk or talk.

How _dare _that virus tamper with someone's mind! And he'd done it inside Platina itself!

Well. Maybe Shurelia had sealed him away along with Mir. Or even better: there was some chance that he hadn't been within the tower at the time, meaning that he was still alive, but without his powers.

Leard hoped so. Ayatane had much to answer for.

"My recommendation would be to let him rest overnight, and consult a dive technician if he doesn't wake up."

Leard nodded, dismissing the man, then pulled the chair closer to the bed so that he could lean forward and get a closer look.

His son looked so frail. He'd always been the picture of health: that sword training was good for something. Now, though, all it was good for was hastening people's deaths. "You finally come home, and now this. I can't say I'm surprised," he said, but he couldn't get any real disappointment into it. "I suppose I have to wait to yell at you about your responsibilities until you wake up. You can't run around fighting viruses anymore. Kyle Clancy's dead, and only Shurelia had the authority to approve moderator status." She had only done that for himself and his heir, and Leard doubted that Tastiella's math painted any prettier a picture than his own. "You've never been allowed to get yourself killed, you hear me? You need to stay here now. But I suppose you have won. There won't be any more forcing reyvateils to sing. And you'll have far more vital things to do than paperwork."

The sound of the clock was painful, seconds ticking by, counting down the time until his death, and the deaths of so many others. The time he had spent dealing with Flute and sitting here watching his son could have been spent making diquility.

Not that it would make any difference, in the end.

* * *

"Who do you think you are?"

"I'm Radolf," he said, trying to project calm, which was a little hard to do when you were strapped down into an airship seat, unable to move and there was someone lounging calmly on top of the open cockpit with a sword at your throat.

"I know that," 'Lyner' purred, which was another sign that something was very, very wrong. Radolf had been asked to open up the lower levels of several reyvateils. The avatars on those levels were always caught up in stories, simple dramas that put the hardships of the reyvateil's life in terms they could understand, the bright and clear world of a child, where dangers were dragons that could be slain and so on.

"Are you Lyner's mind guardian?"

"Wasn't it Funbun that took your fare?" The avatar wagged his finger at him. "You should have asked some of the reyvateils who dove into their partners about what they found. I wasn't sealed away when Lyner was a child, even though the memories I have were. I'm not a simple, small little fragment made up of only one or two thoughts, so that it's easy for you to see the most important things that drive me. I was copied from him when this place was created, just like the others. So I know everything he did up to the Musical Corridor, and after that I know stuff he doesn't. So I know who you are. I asked who you _thought _you were."

"I hope that I'm your friend. I'm just here to find out why Lyner hasn't woken up. I don't mean to intrude."

"Oh, that's because of me." The avatar smiled, shifting so that the robes like Misha's he wore fell flat against his chest. "You are my friend, but I want my partner."

"Your partner?" Radolf hoped that meant Aurica.

"Ay-a-ta-ne," the reyvateil half-sung, and Radolf realized that yes, this avatar was as simple as level one avatars always were, and just as much like a child, but this was a child who had been swinging a stick around almost as soon as he could walk.

"No one's seen him since he kidnapped you and Lady Shurelia, Lyner. I don't know where he is." Radolf wasn't going to say that he hoped the traitorous virus was as dead as Mir was. Mir was the Church's equivalent of Lucifer, and Ayatane her loyal servant and spawn, but it wasn't a good idea to argue with avatars unless it was necessary, and Ayatane was Lyner's childhood friend.

"He's in Em Pheyna, about to get himself captured by Tastiella. She knows he's there. I bet she's just waiting for him to get to where his mother is, so she can trap him there."

"How do you know that?"

"Moderator access," Star Singer Lyner half-hummed again, looking like he felt clever but not exactly smug. The sword swung away from Radolf, and then Lyner used it to poke him on the chest, nowhere near hard enough to hurt. "That makes three people that shouldn't be trapped there."

'It is the duty of the self to live within the physical world. It is the purpose of the avatars to deal with the world of the mind, to allow the reyvateil's feelings to remain pure so that they may sing only what they will.' Everyone had anger and pain within them. Not everyone ran the risk of annihilating whatever they got angry at. That was why it took emotional control to craft a hymn in the first place: just screaming at the tower in rage wouldn't do anything.

Radolf didn't know that Mir had been meant to have no feelings of her own so that there would be nothing to interfere with what she was told to send to the tower, the feelings she was supposed to 'simulate.' He _did _know that reyvateils who experienced too much trauma, like Aurica, were often unable to craft powerful magic _because _of the strength of their feelings. The fact that Lyner's cosmosphere avatars were so… disorderly, paying attention to things other than the aspects of his inner struggle that they were _supposed to _embody, really didn't seem like a good sign.

If his _level one _cosmosphere avatar was responsible for keeping him unconscious, that implied that the others all had that power, and cosmosphere avatars were supposed to be able to oppose each other _without _the conscious mind and the reyvateil's ability to live a normal life being affected, much less held hostage.

"Why don't you let Lyner wake up and come with us?" Radolf tried, even though he knew he was, by definition, dealing with a crazy person. The cosmospheres were where the aspects of the self that were insane ended up, to keep those obsessions, traumas, extreme viewpoints and everything else from tearing the self apart between them. Negotiating, other than by finding what the avatar _really _wanted/needed and giving it to them so they were finally satisfied and could move on with their lives, didn't work.

Radolf had tried to help Aurica once. He'd found what he expected. What had happened to her village was so unjust that part of her was still trapped there, trapped in that reality of helplessness and cruel destruction. She hadn't been able to stop it then, and until she was able to stop it in her own mind she would never really believe that she had power over her own life.

So many reyvateils just needed what every human needed: someone to _listen_. Someone who would give them sympathy without blaming them. Someone to say that what had happened to them was wrong, and they weren't worthless, and a bright future awaited them. What Aurica had needed was something that only she could do, and Radolf hadn't been able to figure out how to give her the confidence to beat the reason she couldn't develop any confidence. He had feared that the key to her power would always be locked inside the box with it.

"To rescue him? That would be faster, but it won't work. Reyvateils suppress things into a cosmosphere. Humans suppress things into themselves. I'm the avatar of what's keeping the outer me asleep, but I don't have any control over it. No: he's my partner, so it's his job to rescue me. So I'll wait here." Lyner flopped back on the roof of the airship, looking up at the sky.

This, he knew. "Don't you remember helping Aurica and Misha? The power always belongs to the reyvateil. All we can do is help them see that. This is your life, your mind. I know that you can overcome whatever's holding you back, Lyner."

"You think that I can rescue myself?"

"Of course."

"So you want me to rescue myself, and then go rescue him."

"Well…" Not quite, but, "It would reassure everyone if you woke up, and if that's what you feel you need to do, then we can go find him." Maybe confronting the virus would help all of him admit the truth about his former friend.

"It's always learn this, listen to _him_, go there, be grateful, fetch that, do your duty, rescue her, stop arguing…" Lyner yawned, then turned over to look down at Radolf. "Of course I can rescue myself." He leaned closer, and said, clearly, slowly and forcefully, "But _I don't want to_." The words were almost as cutting as the blade that pierced Radolf's heart. "Just once in my life, I want someone to do what I actually need them to, not what they insist I should want. Is that so much to ask?"

The avatar asked the question of empty air, for the dive chamber had kicked Radolf out when he had run out of the dependence points that were a measure of how much he could trespass on Lyner's mind without being killed for it.


	9. Catch & Release

_Has anyone guessed the true identity of what is being visualized as a train station yet? _

* * *

After a few hours of searching and only finding a few bodies, it became clear that Lyner had escaped the Silver Horn. Obviously he would try to reach either Platina or the Crescent Chronicle. The Crescent Chronicle was not only closer, but going there would allow Ayatane to see if anything had happened to Mother.

True, to reach the Crescent Chronicle he had to sneak past the whole Teru Tribe and Tastiella, which was much harder without the ability to disappear into the tower and reappear, but the adult tribe members wore such concealing clothing. It wasn't too hard to break into a house on the edge of town and steal some.

Despite that, Tastiella should have appeared to question anyone who entered the Chronicle unannounced. The fact that she didn't just screamed trap, but there wasn't really anything he could do about it except wait for her to spring it and play his trump card if he had to.

"Mother?" He wasn't going to try to pry up the floor plates, but he knelt and pressed his right hand to them, trying to feel what he could.

She was still alive, but locked in suspension just like the tower, the unavoidable consequence of linking herself closely enough to be able to read Shurelia's thoughts and stay ahead of her. Nothing could harm her without harming the tower, the ultimate hostage, but anything that hurt the tower would affect her. "What could have done this?"

"Shurelia sang Suspend," said Tastiella.

Inwardly, Ayatane congratulated himself: he'd thought that she'd appear right behind him when he did something that asked for it, and he'd not only been right, he'd gotten an answer out of setting up the situation properly. He turned to face her, deliberately unimpressed. "Where is Lyner?"

"Right here." The arms that wrapped around him from behind _were _surprising. "Sorry I scared you. Although it wasn't _me _that did that."

"Lyner?" Tastiella couldn't remember the last time she'd been so surprised.

"Hmm, you're partially right. You can call me Guardian Lyner, if you like." He smiled hello, head looking over Ayatane's shoulder.

Tastiella, whose cameras could see every corner of this room, realized that Lyner was wearing the ancient uniform of the Guardians, the one they wore in every statue of the Guardian and Songstress. "You're a cosmosphere avatar, aren't you?"

"Right!" Man, she was quick. "And I bet you can guess how I'm here, right?"

"You and your father have Moderator access, as Shurelia's viceroys. Reyvateils with Moderator access have their links to the tower opened even if no one's reached their level nine cosmosphere," like Mir, "and they can access the tower's systems on a level second only to the administrators." Like Shurelia. And third to Mir, really. She had surpassed Shurelia's control. "That's why it was so important to get you home."

"Because you, my father and I are the only people left who can make diquility," Lyner agreed. "Except my father won't last very long and I managed to get myself stuck in a coma. Sort of like Shurelia, except it's entirely my fault and I admit it."

"A coma?" Ayatane tried to turn around, but the hug was too tight to break without actually applying force.

"Do you still want to rescue me?" Lyner's eyes were bright with laughter and unclouded joy that was all for Ayatane, even if he couldn't see them. "Was yea erra chs weak, en khal anw yeal…" he murmured softly.

"Oh my." Tastiella thought that was one of the sweetest things she'd ever heard. "I'm so happy for you." And for herself. If someone could love a virus then perhaps someday her vigil could be over. "But he must stay here for now. I can't activate the warp anymore since I can't use it, not personally. I was going to tell Leard that he was here."

"You're the administrator of a sub-tower, right?"

"Yes, that's right. Except the Crescent Chronicle doesn't have the ability to detach and remain floating on its own, not anymore." Firefly Alley would be a subtower if it had a consciousness, since it was able to stay in the air on its own, even if it couldn't survive without food and other imports from Ar Tonelico.

The tower's systems were really Ayatane's natural habitat. He wasn't connected to them now, but this Lyner was, and he was connected to Lyner… only not deeply enough to be able to push into this manifested body without help and be pulled along with it as it returned to Lyner's real body in Platina. Pity.

"If you surrender, they'll probably send you to Platina unharmed. Leard must want to kill you, but I make a pretty good hostage."

"Hostage?"

"You'll see when you get there."

* * *

"Good, you're still here. Got a moment?"

Turning around and brushing her stray hair out of her eyes, she sat up straighter in the waiting room seat. "Everything's going according to plan, but I haven't solved any of the other problems yet."

"Same on my end, but I think we can do better than just according to plan."

Curious, she followed her strange ally over to the lockers. What were they a visualization of?

"This one." Tapping the lock, he frowned. "I can't open this one without opening the other, but you're used to dealing with kids that shouldn't be wandering around loose."

"Wandering around, in here? Are these…?" Yes, those were the roots of her tree, that had broken through half the dilapidated doors.

The lock was already open by the time she was done talking, and a red-clawed hand dug through the contents, pulling blue-haired dolls out of it, looking for a certain one.

With pink hair. Handing it to her, he nodded. "I need to get back while he's still busy. Have fun." He almost ran to catch the next train.

* * *

And that was how he ended up getting stripped of his weapons – or weapon, rather, since Lyner had left the sword he'd used behind so Ayatane wouldn't be unarmed – and armor. Or rather, all of his clothing. Even the Funbun t-shirt was deemed too much protection, because they were generally bought to be given as gifts and when it came to showing someone that you cared, powerful grathmelded armor was worth a thousand words.

Ayatane was… or he had been, he was probably going to be court-martialed and dishonorably discharged at the _minimum_ now, a Knight of Platina. They generally didn't own _any _clothing that wasn't armor, down to and including underwear.

Or maybe especially underwear: everyone knew that the Fancy Shop's lingerie was bulletproof. That was why it sold so well. The barracks always said that there was no way to say that you wanted someone watching your back(side) on the battlefield like bulletproof lingerie.

The Teru must not know that he'd been (very) indirectly responsible for Bourd's attack and Misha's kidnapping, since they were being fairly civil about the entire thing. Unlike Platina, they hadn't been attacked by viruses, and this was a city of people who weren't human or reyvateil. Although the Teru were known for being prejudiced against the majority races and insular, they seemed to regard him as one of the tribe, albeit one on the other side, since he wasn't really a member of any other race. They'd given him first a sheet and eventually come up with some very… inelegant clothing that actually had been made by someone who had cut up an old sheet and tied up the sides with string instead of thread. No one had 'sewn' here in centuries: that was what grathmelding was for.

He would have offered to help, just to have something to do, but they had been smart enough to tie him up. At first, just his hands behind his back, so he could walk out of the Crescent Chronicle. If he was going to be a prisoner, he would have preferred to stay near his sleeping mother, but Tastiella was no fool. She wasn't going to risk him coming up with some way to get Mir's body out of there.

So he'd been escorted to the Temple Grounds, where his ankles were also tied, the sheet was wrapped around him more securely, and he was told to sit and wait for Flute to return.

"Do I want to know what Leard thinks of all this?" he asked Tastiella, who had remained manifested to keep an eye on him.

"I haven't been able to tell him about you yet," she said, with her sweet voice that was somehow both a little girl's and an old lady's. "Right now, there's no way to send messages except the Circula Teleporter and the airship."

"Is Krusche piloting it?" He'd only met her briefly, but he'd tried to learn all he could about dear Lyner's new friends.

"Yes." Tastiella only smiled mildly, but she must be wondering if he was still able to get current information from the tower in some fashion. He wasn't, but keeping her guessing was something to do. "I haven't seen that talented a pilot in, oh, two hundred years now?" One of the things that Tastiella did was monitor Ar Tonelico's airspace.

"Really, she's that good?" He chuckled when Tastiella frowned slightly at that. "I'm just making conversation." Tastiella didn't have to worry that she'd just make Krusche a target.

She looked at him sitting there as though the ropes were just something he was putting up with to humor them, and if this was a real body that could get wrinkles frown lines would have appeared on her forehead. Since all she had left was projections like these, all that happened was that her eyes grew a little sadder, a little more distant, and a lot older. She was quite young compared to Shurelia, but at times like this she felt positively ancient. And weary.

This boy (virus or not, he was a boy, they were all getting younger and younger…) would either be the death of Ar Tonelico, or its best hope.

Mir, the Mother Virus, had finally succeeded in creating sentient viruses. Ones that couldn't be sealed away along with her. Ones that could carry on her work for her. Ones that could plan a way to break her loose, wake her up again.

The Crystal Chronicle and the Chronicle Key were no longer enough to protect the tower. Ayatane himself had proven that by possessing Shurelia herself, making Misha stop singing and giving Mir a new body so _easily_. There could be others out there, posing as human or reyvateil and _waiting_. Even if there weren't others now, Mir could make more, in stolen minutes of waking here and there. Send them out into the tower every time the song paused even for a moment, and pureblooded beta types might not need to eat or sleep but they did need to give birth, they did die (so quickly, singing that hymn).

If Shurelia was awakened, then they would have to find a new way to imprison Mir, or some other solution, or else it would only be a matter of time until she broke free for good. If Shurelia didn't wake up, within thirty, fifty years at the most there would only be a handful of reyvateils left alive.

The invention of diquility had been a blessing, since it allowed third generation reyvateils to live longer, happier lives. Normal lives, with the opportunity to learn skills, have careers, and find love.

Metafalss tower, where it had been invented, had reaped the benefits first. It had been centuries before Frelia had been able to inform the other towers of that discovery, and due to that the blood would have been far thinner here even without Mir's Rebellion.

With diquility, reyvateils could be stronger, more active, engage in riskier behaviors and have freedom. Without it? What modern reyvateil would consent to being _bred _to produce even shorter-lived daughters? Third generation reyvateils had been disposable in the old days partly because they simply didn't last very long at all.

The thinner the blood, the more diquility they needed. If people began to ration, would they cut off the lower-powered, less pureblooded classes first so that the higher classes could survive longer? Could they try importing it from Metafalss, and run the risk of being conquered? They might only have half the land they should have, but it was healthy. Obviously the people of Metafalss would want to trade what Ar Tonelico's people needed to survive for what _they _needed to survive. If something like that could even work without Shurelia waking up long enough to lower the tower's automatic defenses.

Ayatane was proof they were doomed, meant to doom them all, yet he'd caused Mir to do something that shattered the boundaries between the races… for love. It could only be that which had made it possible.

She had to believe in that.

"A leaf for your thoughts?"

"Oh, nothing." She managed to smile.

He wasn't fool enough to buy that, but tried to guess what was bothering her. "Mother isn't fond of the Teru Tribe, but their crimes were mainly those of inaction." No, that was being generous. They had been fighting for their own civil rights, but instead of aiding reyvateils they had sought to distance themselves from them so they weren't tarred with the same brush. They'd protested that they weren't appliances like reyvateils, which had only been buying into the belief that reyvateils were just tools in human form. "She hasn't ordered their destruction yet, if that's any comfort, but if she does, it won't be because they've helped you imprison her." They wouldn't suffer because of Tastiella.

"That is… something." So many Teru had grown up calling her Granny: she couldn't help but love them in return, even if she'd managed to steel her heart against the suffering of the Lune line. She managed a smile and a, "Thank you."

He did little more than close his eyes and shrug, looking tired himself. Old before his time. Could it be guilt, did he feel compassion? "What would you do if you were ordered to destroy the Teru Tribe?"

Ayatane shook his head, not opening his eyes to look at her. "I will not betray my Mother."

"You won't? Is that because you aren't capable of it or you refuse to?"

Now he looked at her, with a half-smile that was half humor, half contempt. What could he expect of someone who had imprisoned her for so long, knowing the truth? "I have free will, if that's what you're asking. I also have honor, although I wouldn't blame you for finding that hard to believe." He wouldn't say that he couldn't betray Mir because she could destroy him the instant he did, even if it was true. Mother would do it if she had to, but she wasn't like that.

"I do believe it," Tastiella told him. "You did all that because you didn't want to betray Platina, didn't you? It's really very impressive." Turning so many people to reyvateils? Then her eyes grew shadowed again. Shurelia had turned his attempt to save them into a death sentence.

"Thank you." He nodded modestly. "But Mother was the one who crafted the hymn."

"A hymn? Shouldn't it have stopped working with the tower shut down like this?" Had Shurelia assumed that was what would happen?

"It created the means of changing them, but once that means is used they become reyvateils. I suppose another such hymn could create a means to change them back. Such a hymn would be able to change all reyvateils into humans, since now they're no different from normal reyvateils." What would be Mother's reaction to _that _idea?

Tastiella looked thoughtful. That aside, since Ayatane was being a very well-behaved and polite prisoner, it felt rude to just make him kneel on the hard floor. "Would you like a pillow to sit on?"

"That would be appreciated, but I could really use something to eat, if you wouldn't mind. I skipped breakfast." After Lyner had gone to all that trouble, too.

That reminded him of Lyner, and that business about a coma, and what on earth a cosmosphere avatar was doing wandering around the tower's systems – had the world gone mad? Lyner might be good at grathmelding and taking care of equipment, but cosmosphere avatars were insane by definition. Ayatane wouldn't be surprised if the weather system went out of control and there were sudden rains of funbuns.

Even if he hadn't been worried, though, he didn't like this. He'd grown up with Lyner, then they'd become roommates, and then he'd imprisoned Lyner in the Silver Horn. He'd always been there to come 'home' to. Ayatane had allowed himself to really believe that Lyner could live, that he could be with him forever, and now it was like there was a Lyner-shaped emptiness next to him. He wanted his partner _here_.

Ayatane was putting himself in Commander Leard's hands, after everything he'd done, because he wanted to see him.


	10. Heaven's Judgment

_There are six divisions, in my head, not counting Shurelia's personal guard. They just fought a war against invincible viruses, and the leaders had to be near the front lines to keep track of what was going on and react quickly. The other half of them are dead. The replacements were just appointed, and while they are good people, Leard's trying to keep the 'we're all doomed' information from getting out. Platina isn't used to the idea of having spies among its ranks, so they haven't had to think in terms of 'she's trustworthy, but her husband's brother is over at their house a lot and is a notorious gossip,' and other information management things, not to mention that they thought Ayatane was trustworthy, and that has to be paranoia-inducing. _

_Why yes, genderbent!Jade, Jade's husband, and Dist are Tales of the Abyss expies, why do you ask? I'm not as familiar with Bleach, so Jyu, Shun, and Unohana are far less close to the original characters, my apologies. I decided that I wanted people that weren't the group to escort him and that it would be good to demonstrate the bond between Ayatane and the people of his hometown by showing him caring about some people who aren't Lyner and Shurelia, and I thought I'd use expies so I didn't have to spend a lot of headtime creating bit characters. Probably due at least in part to my condition, I don't really notice how people look or how my surroundings look unless it's relevant to whatever I'm doing at the time. Description has always been a weak point of mine because of that, since I can't just ask myself what I would need to know to visualize/know enough to be immersed in a scene in order to have an idea of the general population. With fanfic, I can skimp on describing people since my readers will already know what they look like, but with new characters there's no preexisting image to refer to and I can't just say 'this is Mr. Prop, visualize a cardboard cutout or something.' And if I were to spend more time describing how OCs, props or not, looked than how the canon characters do? I'm sure I'm not the only one on this site who gets alarm bells set off by a badfic warning sign like that. _

_One time a kiriban winner asked me to have a scene happen with an OC of theirs and like eighty percent of what they sent me was appearance and clothing and so on. And a name. I was like... Is this how most people really conceptualize others? How is clothing supposed to tell me what this character/person is like? It reminded me of a _Calvin and Hobbes _comic where Calvin needed to describe Hobbes for a 'have you seen this tiger poster,' and he listed the important stuff like, 'a good companion in a quiet sort of way,' and his Mom told him no, he needed to put in physical description, that was what mattered, instead of saying what Hobbes was really like. While the poster was obviously meant for visual recognition, the idea of living like that, of thinking of people in names/labels and the shells they show... it's just weird. _

_Disclaimer: I don't own Ar Tonelico or anything else referenced in this fic, rightful owner so. No infringement intended or money made._

_Oh, yes. I don't know why there are certain scenes that I find myself writing in present tense. I know it's bad form to have past and present in the same fic, and I should pick one, but at least I'm not using them in the same scenes? _

_It just creates this great sense of immediacy. I tend to use third person limited, working sort of... like the over-the-shoulder perspective in video games. While I really like that perspective, the trouble is that using the past tense automatically invokes the idea that hindsight is 20/20, and there's the implication that if this is in the character's past, then the character survived it fairly intact and has had some time to think about it. So, when I want to do real mental turmoil without that clarity, or events that feel especially piviotal to the viewpoint character, using present tense upps the tension nicely. If the use of present tense on occassion is rubbing anyone the wrong way (I know, I copy-edit too and errors just jump out at you after a bit), I'll try and revise what I have and avoid it in future. _

_This is chapter 10, out of a total of 27 I already have written, leaving 17 more weeks/around four months until I need to either have more written or fail to update. It's done bar some prep for the final dungeon, the final dungeon, the aftermath and sequel hook. Of course, I have no idea how long that will be. I kept saying 'ten more chapters' for _Tree of Thoth_, and it's been aroudn 20 chapters since the first time I said 20 chapters left, and easily 20 more to go since filler is now required in order for the interpersonal plot to advance? At least this fic will stay on a wartime footing instead of the characters having to obey the _Wake Up Go To School Save The World _trope._

* * *

The nice thing about chainsaws was that they did the cutting for you. All she'd have to do was hold it up to that too-pretty face. Too close to the blastline it wouldn't be safe to just let the airship coast for a bit, but at this altitude she could set it flying level and have a little… discussion with her passenger.

Krusche resisted the temptation and set the airship to climb, but it was still something to think about.

Ayatane really was too pretty. To be fair, Lyner was unfairly pretty himself. It was a reyvateil thing, everyone knew it. All the first reyvateils had been designed to be beautiful, and kids got their looks from their parents. Even the ones who barely had any blood, like Aurica (supposedly), always had perfect skin. It was hard for women like her to compete. Human women.

The one thing this had done for her was clearing up her acne. The shape of her face hadn't changed, she wasn't suddenly beautiful.

Not the way Ayatane was, like a porcelain doll. No, an art deco statuette. Not to mention what was up with that thing on his forehead, anyway? She'd put it down to people from Platina being weird (Exhibit A: Lyner Barsett) when she'd met him, but no one else there had something like that.

Krusche really didn't bother with trying to dress to look good, because the only thing she _could _look good in was a work jumpsuit. Unlike regular, feminine clothing, something like that was supposed to be a bit dirty, have a few stains. It showed you were serious and attracted the attention of other pilots. A dress would just get stained and messed up. Luke had told her that really, men did not care about the dresses and the jewelry and everything. Women were prettiest with their hair down, with no makeup, in old clothes (or no clothes), because then you got to see _them_, not the façade they put up, and there was nothing sexy about a lie. The harder women tried to pretend that they were all perfect and multi-talented and sweet enough that birds would come out of the trees to sing with them, the more obviously fake they were, and what kind of person liked being lied to and manipulated? How were you supposed to love someone if you didn't know the real them?

She would never find Luke's body. She'd accepted that. Long ago, really.

Lyner was still alive, which was why she wasn't going to kill Ayatane. Yet.

Ayatane was a lie just like those fakes, though. All pretty and perfect, sweet and helpful and just wanting to help Lyner and protect Lady Shurelia until he'd gotten into place and stabbed them in the back.

If the way her right shoulder ached didn't prove it, then the way he'd looked when they'd led him up to the airship did. No armor, no swords, none of that (although he didn't need makeup and his hair was still perfect). Just some baggy clothes that didn't suit him at all. They weren't trying to show him off; whoever had made them had probably just been trying to have the right number of sleeves.

His arms had been tied behind his back, and yet he'd walked as though that didn't matter. Without armor, it was clear that grace wasn't because of training. Without clothes that echoed his beauty it was clear that his beauty was not of this world where people used clothing to cover up their defects. In clumsy, handmade clothes it was clear that he had been sculpted by the hand of a master.

The Mother Virus' ultimate creation. How had no one seen it before?

Well, no one had stripped him of his camouflage before this.

It was weird to look at a person and see a machine. A sleek performance racing airship, if he was an airship at all. Like the Tower, really. She couldn't just cut this one open and look at the parts, see what was going on in there. The technology was too foreign.

Although it would probably be fun to try.

Like Radolf, Ayatane was one of those people who smiled by default, and right now that wasn't going to help much, not when there were so many people who wanted to beat that smirk off his face, after what he'd done. Still, she could tell that he'd been studying her in those few seconds before she turned away and focused on the controls, and there had been concern there. Maybe a hint of human vulnerability?

She hadn't addressed him, just said hi to Tastiella and handed over the mail. There was a pretty good chance that if she started talking to him, she'd quickly exhaust the potential of screaming and look for a more direct and visceral way of expressing her feelings, like taking a chainsaw to his face or pushing him over the side of the ship. Although even with his hands tied, he'd likely win any direct contest of strength. She wasn't formally trained, that was what the chainsaw was for. Sure, she was the pilot, but he'd been Lyner's partner and Lyner had picked up airship flying pretty quick. Or maybe he just knew it, being a virus.

"Is Lyner alright?"

Krusche was surprised that he was the one to speak.

"They mentioned a coma," Ayatane tried again.

Shouldn't he have waited for her to give in and speak first, been cryptic and manipulative? Speaking first yielded the advantage. She wanted to tell him that if he cared so much about Lyner, he shouldn't have done this in the first place. "What, you aren't going to ask if I'm alright?" As though he cared.

"You're not alright. You're dying, since with the Tower sealed and Mother asleep again there's no one to ease the transition. Mother intended to give all of you the lifespan of true beta-types." As though that made everything better? "I'm not going to pretend I don't know what I did to you, and I can guess what's happening now. I'd like to be wrong." Was he wrong?

He wasn't, but the fact he wasn't trying to make excuses won him points, so she told him. "Lyner's in a coma. Since his cosmospheres didn't form normally they're too powerful, or something. Stuff like this is probably going to happen to everyone else too, once ours develop enough." Krusche's shoulder stabbed and she grimaced. She needed to get diquility as soon as she got back, as much as she hated it. Platina's doctors made her feel like she was getting touched somewhere private, and even though they were almost all female it didn't really help much. Radolf was busy in meetings: she might have to find Jack. It was handy to have an indentured servant sometimes, and it was _her _arm he would be inserting it with. She'd made it, he hadn't paid for it yet, so she owned it. And him.

"So all the people of Platina changed? Everyone?"

"You sound relieved."

"Yes, I am. Although that's not good news now, is it? They'll die unless the tower is returned to normal – although I shouldn't be the one to say that, everyone will think I'm just trying to get Mother back." Lyner. Lyner would surely insist on saving Shurelia and with her everyone in Platina. They'd listen to him, hopefully, the way they never would trust Ayatane ever again.

"Aren't you?"

"Of course. She_ is_ my mother."

"Shouldn't you be trying to destroy Platina?"

"Mother's enemy is humanity, not Platina."

"…Is that what you were up to?" Krusche had to think about that for a second. "Clever. If you weren't a traitor, I might have to like you." There were two kinds of people in the world: people who whined and made excuses while claiming they were so great and manipulating others and people who went out there and came up with ways to solve their problems, even problems that seemed impossible. Airship mechanics had to be the second type, obviously. The things wouldn't just fix themselves if you batted your eyelashes or glinted shiny teeth at them. "Maybe you and Lyner are alike after all."

"I'm flattered that you think so," he murmured, and she knew that if she looked in the rear-view mirror he would probably meet her eyes and look devastatingly handsome, the way Lyner did when someone told him good news. Although there was nothing calculated about the way Lyner would smile, relieved for everyone's sake, and looking at you as though you were responsible for all of it. Lyner made other people feel like they were heroes too. Ayatane seemed the type who made other people feel like they were as wicked as he was.

How had they ended up friends? Had Ayatane been drawn into Lyner's orbit just by design, or because Lyner was Lyner and did that to people? If Lyner was the sun, Ayatane was a moon. Meant to reflect back his surroundings so people saw someone like them, like a chameleon.

Luke had been the endless sky, so she really couldn't blame him for letting it call him home. Being up here was like being with him, and it was hard to hate someone indirectly responsible for her being up here in the first place.

She'd probably feel very different if she was the sort of person who just accepted technical difficulties in the first place, let alone _dying _because of technical difficulties instead of trying to find a solution.

Or if it were someone else's life at stake. She was a pilot who tested her own airships, which was _the _most dangerous profession in the world, and Luke was gone. Krusche wasn't going to get upset over being in a little danger. If she cared about that she wouldn't have invaded Tenba and met Lyner in the first place.

No, what she was really pissed about was the _indignity_ of it all, but she could carve up Ayatane's face later.

* * *

Ayatane knows that he should walk through town with his head held high, because he is representing his Mother here and her cause is just (he has to believe that). He should meet their eyes, and when they look at him with venom, asking him why he should remind them that he did this to save him, and the current situation is Lady Shurelia's fault, not his or his mother's.

He should believe that.

Yet he can't. He can't meet their eyes, because the group sent to escort him are all reyvateils, veterans that he's been running into a few times a week for years, at headquarters and on the training fields and in the city. He knows them, they know him, and _he hurt their partners_.

That's what it comes down to.

All the good intentions in the world don't change the fact the people they love are dying now, and because of him. Words or placing blame won't change that. It was his idea, he put it in the water, and it is his responsibility that they are dying.

Lyner is dying now, so he understands how they feel. He's in the same boat. So he understands why they hate him. He can't argue with it. Saying he was sorry wouldn't cut it, so all he can do is bow his head as they bind his wrists tighter, bind his arms to his sides and tie ropes to him that they can hold on to in order to keep him in the middle of them, like a dangerous animal.

Besides, "Stand there," they haven't said anything to him, guiding him into position and telling him where to hold his arms with shoves that clearly wish they were blows, but Leard chose wisely, sending veterans to escort him. There is such a thing as discipline, and they won't abandon their honor. Not the way he did. The very fact they don't strike him is an unspoken slap in the face, a reminder of the honor he should have had and the contempt those who abandon it deserve.

The ropes are finally stretched taught, and the Colonel of the Third Division tugs on her rope, hard enough to make him take a step forward but not sharp or hard enough to make him trip or fall. "Move out," she tells the others. "Keep an eye on the perimeter." She didn't need to tell them to keep an eye on him.

He knows the cobblestones and paving slabs they walk over. He's walked these streets almost all his life.

He's smelled smoke here before, but this is the scent of destruction, not of dinner, and here and there is some rubble that hasn't been swept off the streets yet.

He can hear the hushed, worried voices of parents getting their children off the street, and it shouldn't be a surprise that they're afraid of him. He _knew _that he was going to destroy Platina when he was a child himself, and that meant the male children as well. It meant their deluded mothers would try to protect them. This is what should have been, except for the fact that he's a prisoner instead of the general of an invading army.

So why does it feel so _wrong_?

The murmurs of hatred are easier to bear. It would almost be easier if they attacked him. Fighting was straightforward. It was simple when it was a matter of you and the people trying to kill you, or torture you, the way it had been for Mother. If it had just been growls, then he could have raised his head in challenge. The hums would have been funny, since the song magic was off, if he hadn't cared how they felt. When humans were angry, sometimes a growl crept into their voice. When a reyvateil hummed, it was a sign that they wanted to break into song, either because they were happy and wanted to share that with the world or because someone was really just _asking_ to be pounded six feet into the ground by a small, localized meteor shower, and they would be happy to oblige.

Honestly, he wouldn't have minded someone's hymn making the ground open up and swallow him, broken bones or no. Especially since that would have meant that the song magic had returned, and with it his mother and his hope of making things right.

The ropes around his waist are all taut, although it took them a block to figure out how to keep moving so he wasn't pulled too hard in directions they didn't want him to go, but after that was sorted out they aren't even giving sudden tugs, or any of the other things they could be doing to make this more miserable.

He's surprised that people aren't shouting or throwing things, but they're probably too scared of the Lady Colonel and her troops. Being scared of him wouldn't stop them. He's an enemy and they're trained to fight enemies, powerful or not, but the Colonel is notorious for assigning those who irritate her laps until their legs fall off or vocal meditation exercises until their throat tries to strangle itself, and that's an entirely different kettle of fish. He knows that they're watching, wishing that an excuse would present itself but fairly certain that won't happen since he's being taken care of. That's what he would be feeling, if he were still one of them.

The Colonel was probably chosen for her well-known intimidation factor, but also for the fact that her husband might be in his late thirties, past the average lifespan of a third-generation reyvateil, but he's a grathmelding tailor who owns a half-dozen large, friendly dogs, not a knight. He might have done basic, but he'd been grabbed by the quartermaster's office after he'd redesigned his uniform from the ground up three times in a row and one thing led to another.

It was traditional for veteran reyvateils whose partners weren't in the knights to be assigned knight trainees to mentor until they found their own partners, and vice versa. Until Shurelia decided she'd take him along with Lyner, the way she'd taken on both Leard and Kyle before them, Ayatane had thought he'd be assigned to her, since he was top of his class, so he'd done his homework.

She's not his friend. The Lady Jade didn't _have _friends, as much as the Colonel of the Second Division claimed otherwise, but Ayatane's sharp wit and skill with his blades had marked him as less useless than the average trainee, and he'd hired her husband to design his armor.

Her husband was every bit as social as she wasn't, so Ayatane's one of the fairly few people who knows that her reputation as a lethal chef is undeserved: she put the noxious substances and minor poisons in deliberately so she could get out of kitchen duty.

He's also aware of the fact that she doesn't have a single blue magic, just powerful red magic. Most people in Platina view that as an interesting curiosity but nothing too special: probably luck of the draw or something, but appropriate because she's a scary bitch. According to Mother, that sort of thing was not a minor detail, it was a rare phenomenon, and Ayatane should consider her his fourth target.

Because of this, he isn't surprised that the Colonel has gotten a feather-light airmetal spear from somewhere: it was probably a leftover prop from one of her husband's costume parties. He is also aware that the reason Leard had known she wouldn't use it on him had to be that her husband wasn't in immediate danger. He wasn't out of shape, but he probably wasn't starving right now. He had at least a few more years, and the Colonel was strategist enough to know that Ayatane's information was the best chance they had of devising a counter-virus or something else to give him more time.

Discipline or no, most people would be furious enough that they'd be willing to look the other way if someone threw something at him, or maybe give him a tug that just happened to make him trip on some stairs. The Colonel's emotions don't have that much leeway.

Except that it's not possible for anyone to exist without emotions. Mir's had been focused on her parents and then on justice. Everyone knows the Colonel's soft spot. As long as her husband is safe, she'll be able to be detached enough to make rational decisions no matter what happens. On the other hand, if the invasion had happened as planned and her husband had died first, Ayatane would almost certainly have experienced the unpleasant sensation of having his body temperature lowered to absolute zero. Everyone knew about that one. Shurelia had forbidden her from using it, and two others, since it had thrown the entire tower's temperature sensors and climate control out of whack in the process.

The Colonel had grown up reading science and grathmelding books instead of fairy tales, and those gave people ideas quite a bit more dangerous than the standard dragons and fairies.

He almost wants to ask her if her husband is alright, but the fact that spear isn't sticking out of his gut already answers that question. But even if he's fine, did his workshop (they live on the second floor above it) get burned down, was he having fun reinventing old methods of making clothes without grathmelding…

But they're not friends. They're not even acquaintances anymore.

She's not the only one in this circle he's exchanged more than a few words with. Leard clearly picked the most disciplined and the best at fighting despite reyvateil limitations he had. The Colonel of the Fourth is here too, and she'd always stopped by at least once a month when Ayatane was pretending to be a small child, to check up on his widowed 'mother,' telling her former sergeant the news and trying to coax her out of the grieving, reclusive shell Ayatane had locked her into. That had been alright, it had brightened her days a bit and he'd hacked Lady Unohana's cosmosphere to make sure that she would never figure out that anything besides the obvious was wrong, or that he was responsible.

She's not carrying a weapon, but her little pale green shoulder dragon is still capable of breathing flame, even if it's not as strong as its wild cousins. He thinks it's the same breed as Tastiella's, but Tastiella's is just a projection of a long-dead pet, so it's hard to tell.

He's not thinking of his false mother. They would have interrogated her. Unohana is likely furious with him, the kind of furious that results in second-degree burns that no one will heal if they know what's good for them.

He's not asking about that poor woman, either. There's nothing he can do to make up for what he's done to her. He knows that and they know that. Any question would be taken as just pretending to be concerned, since if he'd cared he wouldn't have done that to her in the first place.

He wishes it had been that simple, but good intentions don't change the fact that he tampered with her mind. Neither does remorse.

Ayatane hopes they know that she didn't help him willingly, that they haven't executed her for treason, but any concern he shows for her, any pleas on her behalf would hurt her chances of survival, not help them.

It's almost a relief when the familiar shadow of the cathedral falls over the ground: almost there.

He's almost looking forward to dealing with Leard, after this silent procession. How ridiculous.

He'd laugh, if it weren't for the fact he wants to see Lyner again before he dies.


	11. Die For Love

_The most powerful song magic is really the weaponized power of love. Thus it makes sense that i__n the world of _Ar Tonelico_, relationships are Serious Business. Especially for military people. Well, encouraging fraternization in the ranks worked for the Spartans... However, because of this, they're more aware of love as something that affects _threat level.

_Take the three people I listed earlier (although Kyle's dead). The tower would already have an ID for them as humans as moderator access, and then they became reyvateils. This would likely activate what Mir did to give herself the Teiwaz rank and the ability to wander around in the tower's systems. However, finishing the level 9 cosmosphere also connects a reyvateil to the tower, since it shows they have the stability to handle that kind of power. And it's the level 9 cosmosphere avatar that is actually doing this: the conscious self of the reyvateil doesn't know what's going on within them._

_So, give Mir's ability to access the tower to two people with undeveloped cosmospheres. While Mir, and not just her level 9 avatar (not that she has one: level nines come into existence after the other cosmospheres are completed), is able to go into the tower, I'm betting that cosmospheres forming after someone got moderator access could create a bug that would cause the tower link in the cosmosphere to be created already open. Now take the usual sort of crazy avatars, only more so since they weren't formed properly, and give them the ability to wander around in the tower without Shurelia there to stop them._

_Given the description of the relationship between Frelia and the goddess maiden, it seems as though Exec_SolFage is meant to give the Holy maiden a_ controlled _version of this reyvateil moderator access, giving Luca certain limited powers, while Mir's version was designed to give Mir as much power as possible and remove Shurelia's ability to do anything about it. _

* * *

"Commander Leard? The prisoner has arrived." And the question was what to do with him. The Great Hall of Platina's cathedral served several functions, including courthouse when someone exercised their right to be heard by Lady Shurelia and the city's ruler. It was tempting to have them tie the virus to something outside while he sent some of the pages, who were still too young to activate as reyvateils, to go fetch the piece of furniture they used for securing prisoners and put it together. It had to be somewhere near the front of the storage room: they'd executed Kyle just before this blasted plague happened.

"Where there any incidents on the way?" Leard asked instead.

"No, but I wouldn't press our luck." The way leaving him outside for too long would. They'd brought him in too fast for miscreants to gather. "Although it _would_ be interesting to see a real, live mob in action, exciting the populace is the last thing we can afford right now, in light of… recent discoveries." That she wasn't going to discuss with Ayatane right behind her. Riots had been common in the years before Mir's uprising, so a large portion of the old tactical doctrine was devoted to dealing with them. It had been so long since Platina had a riot that there was only a brief chapter on them in modern doctrine, but Colonel Jade had always been interested in ancient curiosities, which had brought her to the attention of Kyle Clancy and then she'd brought certain aspects of his research to Shurelia's attention.

Leard nodded. "I want everyone except the colonels to leave at once. Dist, lock the doors. Jyu, come here. You two, secure him as best you can."

Jyu was technically a former colonel, but he'd insisted on coming out of retirement and Leard couldn't afford to refuse the help. His wasting sickness was the result of getting hit with one of the forbidden weapons Kyle had dug up, and he'd spent a good deal of time figuring out how to work around it before Shurelia had ordered him to retire. Leard nodded for him to sit down on the first step of the dias. Jyu, Unohana's attack dragonet, and Colonel Dist's minions were the only things in the room that could stop a fully trained knight, let alone a virus. Dist had gotten out of mandatory bed rest since he'd always been a scrawny little runt. He'd figured out how to hack some of the tower's defense robots and used them to fight for him.

There was also Jade, if worst came to worst, but that was a last resort, Leard thought as she knocked at young Ayatane's… the virus' legs with her spear. "On your knees."

Unohana was the one to secure his legs, since she was used to securing the injured or hysterical for transport, and Leard hoped it was tight enough to hurt a bit, although she was too professional to cut off his circulation. Pity.

"Where is the hymn crystal ReNation?" he demanded once the virus and the room were secure.

The virus' head had remained bowed until he asked that question, but this made him look up. Surprised it was going to be that easy? "Bishop Falss kept it in his private office."

"Where is this private office?"

"Attached to the church in Nemo. It's in a chest that requires a code to open." The fact he was trying to keep the contents of the chest a secret when all his plans were spelled out in his diaries for anyone who could get back there to read had made Ayatane curious, when he'd investigated the traitorous bishop on Mother's behalf.

"Commander?" Colonel Jade interjected.

"Yes?"

"I strongly suggest that we retrieve it as soon as possible."

"Of course." Leard nodded. "But if you're stating the obvious as a lead in to trying to convince me to let you go, the answer is no. Radolf, Krusche and Harmonica are familiar with the church and the lower world. The one reason you would be helpful is the reason you cannot be allowed to go."

"I am familiar with Director Clancy's methods of concealment. I might spot something they wouldn't."

"True, but you're not the only one here who worked with him. Colonel Dist? I'm putting the mission in your hands."

"Me? Why yes, Commander." He'd have to take only the robots that could fly, but that would still be an impressive force to lower worlders.

"Commander…"

"Colonel. This is not the time." For your little rivalry with the second division commander. "Dist, leave at once, but have Aurica remain here."

"Of course, sir." He unlocked one of the side doors and slipped out, locking it behind him.

"You're going to restart the tower? With ReNation?" It couldn't be that simple.

That got the virus a tug from Unohana and a whap from Jade. "Please be quiet unless you are asked a question." Unohana seemed sweet as ever, but now he didn't even rate a name, let alone being called Little Aya.

"We don't have a choice. According to Mir, you're the one who ensured that."

"What did Shurelia do? ReNation only counters Suspend, but if she used Suspend reyvateils should no longer need diquility." Diquility countered the effects of the energy field on systems that couldn't quite handle it. No song magic field emanating from the tower should equal no need for diquility. "They would be effectively human. If she did something else, ReNation won't help." He'd assumed that she must have done something unexpected, to counter Mother.

"It was Suspend." Leard looked at Jade, who looked about as unhappy as he was. This confirmed their theories. "We could have survived without access to the hymn fields _and_ grathmelding. There are ancient methods of creating medicines and other materials. However, grathmelding is the only means of creating diquility. Currently, access to Ar Tonelico's server is impossible, and none of us have access to Harvestasya." He hoped Sol Marta had switched over to Harvestasya without a hitch. Metafalss had enough problems as it was. "However, there is another server. It was constructed before the end of the Second Age."

"Infel Pira?"

Ayatane had reminded Leard of Kyle. Such an intelligent boy. He probably should have seen the betrayal coming, with a hint like that. "Yes. The Infel Pira server was designed to be infectious. Jade?" How much should we explain?

"With Ar Tonelico down, all reyvateils switched to broadcasting their requests for power to anyone that would hear them. Sol Marta was designed to send songs and power between Ar Tonelico and Metafalss. Without proper security or encryption, every reyvateil on the tower is open to receiving power from Infel Pira. Receiving power from it doesn't automatically cause the virus to overwrite a reyvateil's cosmosphere, but it's a vulnerability that only increases as the reyvateil uses that power. Fortunately, the hymn language of the tower servers isn't compatible with Infel Pira. Unfortunately, if the virus infects a reyvateil, it would give them the ability to use that language."

"In other words, we have the worst of all possible worlds. We have the power of songs, but not the ability to create the substance that would keep it from killing us. Not only that, but before very long we'll start having IPD outbreaks, and we won't have any sane reyvateils who can use song magic to oppose them." Leard really wished he could sit down.

He watched the virus calculate its options. Yes, doing this would revive Mir as well, so it wouldn't do anything to stop them. For now.

According to the tower's identification system, there were three reyvateils who could access the tower despite the security lockdown and sing ReNation. Aurica's moderator account was a clone of Mir's. Under no circumstances was he letting the Mother Virus' daughter revive Shurelia, after what her son had already done to the Lady of the Tower. His account had also been given the teiwaz label, but singing that powerful a hymn would kill him. He'd do it, for Lady Shurelia's sake, but hopefully it wouldn't be necessary.

That left his son.

Joy.

"So. _What did you do to my son_?"

"Besides what you already know of?" Turning him into a reyvateil, possessing him and kidnapping him? "I didn't put him into a coma… well, actually, I put him into comas while I wasn't there to keep him from exerting himself or escaping, but if I still had the power to do that to him, he wouldn't have escaped in the first place." He'd generally been respectful in front of the commander, but Leard wouldn't buy that anymore. The flippancy he'd possessed when playing around with Lyner wouldn't suit either, Ayatane reminded himself. "When I possessed his body, his first level cosmosphere avatar acted rather… oddly. And then his eighth manifested right in the Crescent Chronicle and told me to surrender and come here. I suspect all of this is their doing."

Actually, yes, he could believe that. "You didn't put him up to any of it?" Leard asked, even though Lyner was fully capable of doing something like this on his own. And these were the childish, imbalanced, immature, insane aspects of his son. The mind boggled.

"If I still had the ability to influence his mind, he would be safe in the Silver Horn," Ayatane reminded Leard.

"What guarantees do I have that you won't take advantage of the dive to do to him what you did to the woman who raised you?"

That made the virus bow his head again, pretending guilt. "I have no excuses. I couldn't be here in Platina, much less get close to Lady Shurelia, without an identity. That doesn't change the fact that I harmed her. Greatly."

Unohana was not impressed. She was the one who had dived into her to do triage. _After _realizing how ridiculous it was to think that Ayatane wouldn't do something like that when he was a virus. There was no deeper violation than tampering with someone's mind.

"But Lyner is…" He paused. "Mother's plan was to kill all the humans here, and any reyvateils brainwashed enough to oppose her. I was the one who wanted to change you instead of helping her murder you. I will not betray my mother. My loyalty has always been to her." Now he met their eyes, fiercely insisting that he was no traitor. "So I will give you my oath that I will not do anything, to any of you, in exchange for her revival."

"You gave your oath to protect Platina and Lady Shurelia," Leard said.

"Lady Shurelia is still alive. It was never Mother's plan to kill her, when the tower needs her. As for Platina, you are what you are now because I wished to protect all of you." He added two, quiet words: "Especially Lyner."

"What is my son to you?"

"He is my partner." Now he bowed, probably as deeply as he could without toppling over and looking ridiculous. "I can't ask for your approval, but you are his family. So I wish you to know that I intend to offer him a ring."

Platina was no stranger to unconventional relationships. About the only rule was that everything had to be between consenting adults (or consenting teens, one or the other). Other than that, it was 'whatever makes everyone happy.' The idea of loving an artificial being like reyvateils had been viewed as perverted when the Apostles of Elemia were formed, so they didn't really have any excuse to object to other unconventional relationships. Not to mention that a reyvateil who had found love was a powerful reyvateil, and generally very willing to smite anybody to tried to get between her and him. Or her. Or them. The ideal was a guardian and a songstress protecting each other, hand in hand, but some people would rather be tailors. Or bartenders.

Viruses, now, that was a new one.

The _effrontery_ of this unnatural creature, this, this _rapist _who had invaded and tainted cosmospheres, thinking that Leard would allow him to, forget trusting him to, protect his only child? The heir to Platina, and right now, most importantly, a tower moderator?

First he stared, then he laughed, a deep, hearty sound that he enjoyed until he realized that he was laughing so hard he couldn't breathe. Jyu was the first to realize something was wrong, and it was disgraceful for a Commander to be held up by a sick old man.

Before long Unohana was fussing over him too. "I'm alright, I'm alright," he managed to say, brushing them off once he managed to regain control of himself. "What nonsense is this… a virus, in love with my son?"

"I have loved him for a long time. I was his friend, even though I tried not to let him be mine. Then we turned twelve, and the girls started to change, and I thought that if he changed, we wouldn't have to fight." Ayatane sounded hurt by Leard's reaction, by the fear that it just wasn't possible, even though he took comfort from the memory. "I wanted him to live."

Jyu remembered Shun, and the reyvateils they'd mentored and helped find loving partners until the day Shun got a lethal dose and Jyu didn't. He would have died for Shun, and the only reason he had hung on this long, when so many days it was a battle just to take another breath, because he was willing to live for him, too.

Jade remembered breaking into people's houses, since she'd been practicing to break into the archives and armory and see all the stuff that was in the books, and finding a strange boy who wasn't anything like that stupid Dist who kept getting her caught. He wasn't scared of her, not of her hardness or her brilliance, not even when he made her weird costumes, because he knew she wouldn't hurt him.

Dist thought of Jade, pretty and perfect, scary and elegant, always elegant, even when they were children and he was always tripping over everything, trying to catch up after her growth spurt. And, well, sometimes he'd tripped because she only paid attention to him when he did something annoying, and teasing her was suicidal. He'd thought she was his, though, since she hated stupid people and he was the only person anywhere near as smart as she was. Except that _scum_ Kyle Clancy. If he'd tried to make trouble, she would have said he was small-minded and jealous, and he had been, but it hadn't been his imagination that there was something slimy about the man. Nowadays, dear Jade might be happy with that oaf whose father had wanted a girl, but that didn't mean anyone _else_ was allowed to touch her.

Unohana remembered a man who had captured and trained wild dragons, trying to improve the breed. She thought of all the excited lectures she'd sat through, drinking tea and making encouraging noises, and how the passion in his eyes had made her love every second of them. She couldn't forget the day she'd stayed late at the division office and gone home only to find that one of them had broken out in the night. It was how he would have wanted to go.

Leard thought of Lady Shurelia, who could never grow up. A small delicate Holy Maiden and at the same time the great tower that bore all of their weight without complaint or rest. There was no nobler thing than what she did. There was no greater love than hers for them. There was nothing as precious as she was, as pure as she was, the one who had lived through so much pain that they all could live. Nothing as beautiful as her soul, and if he could reduce her burden by one hair, if he could spare her one iota of pain, then he would die content. He wished he could let her stay asleep. If she woke up and discovered what she'd condemned them to in her desire to save them, she would blame herself.

They couldn't hide that he'd managed to affect them, and silence fell for a few, fleeting moments as they remembered the feeling Ayatane had expressed. It was not something that could be faked. It was not something that could be argued with.

Even so, it didn't make them any less suspicious of him, any less sure that he was a dangerous and poisonous enemy.

No: this was something that made him very, very dangerous.

None of them would have earned their positions if they hadn't learned to tap into the strength that made mothers lift carts to rescue trapped children, that let them fight or sing without hesitation or fear. That surety, that gave someone the strength of ten, that _desperation_ that drove someone past their limits?

If Ayatane was telling the truth, then he had already moved mountains and done terrible things for love, for his mother and his partner. He would do whatever it took. He would not stop, not as long as they were in danger or unhappy. He simply would not.

These people were far better than Mir, who had so little experience with love, at running the kind of calculations that had made her tell Ayatane to kill Jade before Peony.

Mir was still the enemy.

But they were going to have to kill Ayatane first. If that was how he felt, then there was no way around it. Sparing him was not an option, although they'd already known _that_.


	12. East of the Sun

_In which there is some sibling rivalry. _

* * *

Leard would obviously have liked to let him stew in a cell for a few days, but there wasn't time. He would have liked to say hello first, touch him and see that Lyner was intact even if he wouldn't wake up. Instead, Lyner was already in the dive capsule when he was brought over there and he was unceremoniously loaded into the other one, and informed that they would be _watching_ him.

He wouldn't have minded if it was just him, but this was Lyner's cosmosphere they were talking about, the things that he had suppressed because they were terrible or shameful (or both). Lyner's secrets. He tried to object, but they weren't having any.

"Did you know that we could cut your tongue out here and you could still talk inside the Cosmosphere?" Unohana informed him.

He hesitated, wishing there was something he could say to convince them, but they had the power, not him. There was his trump card, but now wasn't the time to play it.

"Oh, this is just it!" Dear Lyner was _furious_. "This is my first time, and they want to spy on us?" Was nothing sacred? Did everything in his life have to boil down to what other people wanted or claimed to think he needed?

The world around them shook, and shook again. It wasn't the airship that shook, or the geography around them, but Ayatane realized that something was affecting the dive machine. "Don't damage the hardware!" Lyner called.

"What's going on?"

"My level seven and level eight avatars teamed up. That's never happened before." Lyner sort of rolled down into the cockpit. Specifically, Ayatane's lap. Somehow, he didn't feel very heavy at all, even though he didn't feel weak or seem tired. "I have until they're done." He looked sad.

"You think I'll be able to help you achieve a paradigm shift that easily? I'm flattered, but… You're still so complex." His feelings and frequencies weren't as crazed as a human's, but neither were they on a proper level one avatar's level. "I've never done this before."

"You'll manage. And I have to have feelings besides those that are there for the job since I'm stuck trying to make sure the job can even start being done in the first place," this Lyner grumbled. "I don't ask for a lot of things, do I?"

"You ask for your freedom. To your father, that is the biggest thing. You ask people to think about what they're doing." And Ayatane, for one, knew he hadn't wanted to.

"I know." He sighed. "I really appreciate you coming this far for me. Putting yourself in danger for me. It means everything. It could work, we even have a getaway airship, but I can't let you take me. They need me."

"I'm going to have to kidnap you if I want to rescue you. You said that before."

"No, I said you were going to have to fight me." Lyner grabbed the seatbelt strap, hit the wheel with his foot, and used the other foot to make sure Ayatane fell out of the airship when it rolled over. "Sorry, but I have to go back."

Ayatane found himself floating above the landscape again. These stars really were handy… but did he want to trust them? This was Lyner, he'd been working on two very difficult cosmospheres, and he'd said that Ayatane was going to have to fight him for it. "How much is the cathedral?" Not enough. "The park?"

"Do you want to buy a funbun?"

"Of course."

Well, that was expensive.

"The Altar of Apostles?" He hesitated over that one, even though it didn't seem special. Yet. Neither did the others, so he went to, "The Dark Castle."

He hadn't actually gotten a look at the room Misha had been put in for training. He'd been trying to avoid her, just in case. Lyner was there, in a cage, just as he'd known he'd be. "Dear Lyner? I brought you something."

Lyner blinked at him, startled, then angry, and dashed it out of his hands. "I hate you!"

Ouch. That had cost him. "How could Lyner not like you?" He asked Funbun.

"Sometimes, things to make it better are worse than nothing. They make people stop complaining, or let others stop feeling guilty, but they don't make the problem go away."

"Right, I should have realized that. He didn't understand why he could give her so many funbuns and she never felt better. What she wanted was to be let out of the cage." To play and pretend to be an ordinary child. Ayatane'd resented her cutting into _his _playtime.

"Come with me," he tried this time.

This time, Lyner took his hand. "Where do you want to go? The park?"

The park it was, and they sat on the stone railing. Lyner leaned against his arm. "It's nice. This place. Being here with you."

He took his hand. "We can do this again tomorrow. And the day after, and the day after." Always.

"…Yeah." Lyner smiled, but there was something wistful about it. Something fake.

"There he is, there's the sacrifice!"

Ayatane looked at them, trying to see if there was a hymn among them, but they were only people. "Wait, stop! If he's going to be sacrificed, then doesn't he deserve this?" For some reason, as soon as he said it he knew that he had done something foolish, just as foolish as that funbun.

He was doing what Lyner had tried to do for Misha. If it were really that simple, then Lyner could have solved it for her then. Solved it for himself, he wouldn't need to manifest a cosmosphere for it.

But what else could he do?

"I'll go back now. Thank you."

He didn't let go of Lyner's hand. "No, this isn't right!" He had to do _something _to break the pattern.

And yet he found himself in the sky yet again. "The Dark Palace!"

"Hello again. Did you come to play?"

No. "Let's get you out of here." This time, "The airship!" It was a different model this time, for some reason. "How do you make this thing go faster?" As soon as he asked, it took off. "Lyner, listen. You don't have to be sacrificed."

"Don't be stupid. Of course I do. That's what has to happen for there to be a paradigm shift. I have to be sacrificed so that your Lyner can be happy."

Ayatane knew that was true. "But…"

"Don't worry. Your Lyner well be fine." That normally sun-bright smile was still sad. "This airship and the other one, they're because of your feelings. You want to help me. You want to take me away from all this. I… I could never let myself feel that way before. No one else felt that way about me, so I thought I shouldn't either. It means a lot. That you gave this to me. So… I'm ready."

"But I…"

He felt Lyner's hesitation, unwillingness to listen to him, but their bond was strong enough. "You're a part of the person I… If you die, a part of him dies. I know that it's foolish of me, that this is the way things have to be, but…"

"That's why I'm happy. I'm happy you feel that way. I'm happy to do this for you."

"You're willing to die for me because it would hurt me if you die?" How, how incredibly _wrong _that was! Was this Lyner _sadistic_?

Well, part of him had to be. Part of everyone was.

"Yes. That's it exactly."

Ayatane wanted to remind him of how he'd hated Misha doing that, but that wasn't part of this puzzle. No, a cosmosphere had to be centered around one thing at a time. "Then live for me."

"What?"

"Cosmosphere avatars all become part of the level nine avatar. Some of them can interfere on levels before or after their own…" No, that was too much. "Wait for me. Wait for me, and I will find you."

Now there was that smile, that sun-bright golden radiance, and then he was looking at Stonehenge. That was the paradigm shift, it had to be. "Sometimes, it is that simple."

Because of course Lyner knew that Ayatane would come for him, no matter what. He'd rescued Misha even after losing all his memories of her. Even forgetting his promise to himself hadn't stopped him from keeping it. "I knew that you would. I knew it. But that's not the same thing as feeling." He'd still thought that rescues were for other people, never for him, even though everyone should deserve help. If it was his job to give them help, and he couldn't always give them what they needed, then he didn't deserve what he needed. He tugged Ayatane forward, wanting to pull him along to the next level, to hasten that day.

"You're…I'll see you again. I'll make it to level nine even if it kills me."

Star Singer Lyner started to respond, but then the shift completed and the dive computer began to display the stage clear and result data.

He doubted Lyner would want to dress up like Misha. It would certainly be a conversation starter, but it wasn't like they didn't have catching up to do.

* * *

The two people waiting for him when he got out of the capsule were both Lyners. One was the Guardian Lyner from before and the other looked obviously evil, or as evil as Lyner seemed to get, which was apparently grinding monitoring equipment under his heel and laughing. Ayatane was pretty sure this place had a roof when he was brought in, but he didn't see any bodies.

Guardian Lyner helped him up out of the capsule. "Welcome back."

"Thank you." It took Ayatane to realize where he'd seen an outfit, or more like ornaments, like the other's before. His breath caught in his throat. "Miros?" That was similar to how Mother had appeared during the war, demonic red spikes at all. Although there was much more actual clothing involved in Lyner's version. "How did you know what she looked like?"

Miros Lyner looked at him. "You were connected to the tower. We still are."

"There's quite a lot of footage and other records of the war." The Guardian looked away, scanning the horizon and keeping a wary eye on Miros as well.

"Also, I invaded your mind." Miros Lyner smiled at the thought, wicked and nostalgic. "A pity you don't have a proper cosmosphere. I could have collected nine slaves. I should fix that, shouldn't I?"

"Did you tamper with me?" Ayatane knew that he didn't really have a right to be outraged, after what he'd done to others, but… but this was _Lyner_, and that made it hurt more than any other ever could.

"I'd never change anyone's personality against their will." The Guardian looked sick at the thought.

"I did something, though." Miros Lyner walked up to him, snatched him out of the Guardian's arms. "Want to guess?"

"Will you tell me?"

"Mmm, why not." Miros Lyner licked his ear and then whispered in it, "I can kill you now, anytime I want to. Just like Mir. I could have removed her self-destruct, but I left it in. That way, whichever one of us you choose, you'll die for me." Either because I order you to or because you chose me over her.

Ayatane tried not to shiver and lost the battle, although he blamed it on that heated breath. "That's alright, then." This was Lyner, after all. He loved his Mother and would never force her to make that choice, it was only fair that Lyner have the same hold over him.

A sigh now, ticking his neck. "Sometimes? You're no fun."

"It's alright? It'll never happen." The Guardian drew his sword.

Ayatane heard knocking, coming from the inside of Lyner's capsule. He was awake and they were still out here?

"The truce is over?" A flash, and Miros Lyner's clawed hand was sticking through the Guardian's chest. "Let's take this to the tower, shall we?"

That, "Urk," and the way the Guardian's sword stabbed down into Miros Lyner's foot seemed to be agreement. Either way, they vanished.

Ayatane hurried over to open up Lyner's capsule, lean down, and hug him. "After you sing ReNation and Mother figures out how to make it safe, I'm going to…" He wanted to say he'd kick Lyner's ass, but really, he wouldn't. Nor could he order Lyner to stay with him next time, or scold him for running away. Say that Lyner had worried him? Lyner must know that, he shouldn't need to say it.

"I'm sorry I worried you." Lyner wasn't sorry about the rest of it, but that part had been a cruel thing to do. "Did you like breakfast?"

Ayatane pulled back from him. "Lyner, did you seriously think that I was going to eat breakfast while you were out there getting attacked by monsters and who knew what else?"

Oh. Riiiiiight. Damn. Now that Ayatane wasn't blocking his view of the sky, Lyner could tell that they were in Platina. The view from the lower tower was _really _different. "Do you want to go get funbuns?"

"That depends on…" Whoever was trying to sneak up on them wasn't trying very hard.

"Excuse me?"

"Aurica?" Lyner asked.

She looked over the ruined wall, more shy than afraid until she saw that Lyner was awake. Her relieved smile wasn't anything like Lyner's.

And Ayatane wasn't jealous that Lyner was happy to see her.

"Lyner!" And now she was hugging him and he was hugging her back. "I knew you'd wake up! I brought you some funbuns." Ayatane had recognized the bag.

_He'd _promised to get Lyner funbuns.

"Wow! Thanks, Aurica. You're the best!" This was a good way to wake up. He gave her another hug. "Wait. Does this mean I have a little sister now?"

Ayatane was the one to ask, "What do you mean?"

"Well, you're my partner, and Aurica's your sister. That makes her my sister, doesn't it?" Lyner was an only child and everyone had said he and Ayatane were like brothers, so he had an unrealistic view of sibling relations.

Aurica had thought she was not only an only child but an orphan, and her pseudo-big sister was Claire, so it was easy to miss her disappointment, hidden as it was under the dawning happiness.

"Does this make Leard my father?" Since he didn't have one, it technically did. "I think I'll pass on that. Sorry, dear."

"No, I understand. I wish _I_ could."

"You don't mean that, do you?" Aurica asked, unhappy. She didn't like how Lyner treated his father, what little she'd seen of them interacting.

"He's probably going to try to put Ayatane in a dungeon somewhere and then kill him. He's always like that." For crying out loud… Lyner switched back to hugging Ayatane. "You're here."

"Yes," Ayatane said. "I found you." Not that he really deserved credit for this, but it made Lyner hug him.

Which meant he wasn't hugging Aurica.

At least not until Lyner got the idea of squishing them both together.

* * *

_Guardian and Miros are closer to Yasha and Shinobi Misha than Angel and Devil Aurica. There isn't a clear-cut which one is right, or rather they're both wrong, since they're extremes instead of a middle ground, the third option Lyner finds in the game. Aurica's inner question is good or evil? Especially since her main associations with power are Mir and Bourd. Misha's is slavery or freedom, when slavery will kill her (Chronicle Key singers live thirty years max, when a beta should live 250ish) but freedom would kill everyone else. _

_On the other hand, you could say that their natures are more akin to angel and devil Aurica than Misha's 7 & 8, but that would be telling… _

_Oh, yes: incorrectly-developed cosmosphere avatars are somewhere between the usual two-d avatar and the three-d person, and which they act like and why is dependant on context. During the cosmosphere sequences, they're going to (mainly) be in character, but Lyner's and Aurica's cosmosphere avatars are going to have roles in the fic, so I'm playing with the whole concept (it is shiny, after all). The purpose of cosmosphere avatars ...and I need to stop spoiling this fic in the author's notes. Has anyone here studied enough psych to put two and two together? If you're saying 'about what' I would normally give a few indications as to what (I've dropped hints about quite a few things), but that would _really _give it away, if I pointed people at the... little indications in the games and the fic any more than I already have. _


	13. West of the Moon

_Something that I had to put thought into for this fic was everyone's knowledge bases. What did characters already know, what information did they have available to them if they put the time in to look (the library, for example), how likely were they to actually put that time in given the stuff that was going on, did they know it was there to look at, who said what in front of who that made them think what… Mir knew about the Metafalica project, that was much of the reason for Harmonius. It's canon that Mir kicked so much ass in the war partially because she could access all Shurelia knew, even her thoughts and plans, but there's a difference between having the access to knowledge and caring enough to open a textbook. It's the same as the difference between having a power and actually knowing how to use it. Or even knowing that it exists. _

_In the end, a lot of what makes people act intelligently as opposed to so-called raw intelligence is personality and motivation. Lyner is very motivated to figure out how to save people and so on. Mir and ancient history are very relevant to that. An astounding percentage of the game is spent trying to find out what happened and how to fix it. Taking into account how quickly he picks up grathmelding and that he already had extensive experience as a user of the tower's systems? He's technically using 'spells' to open the gates and so on. Programs. Using hymnos. _

_However, yes, Mir set up the Teiwaz account-type to allow her to hack Shurelia's mind, but Mir knew how to hack. Lyner doesn't have that ability or a lot of time to learn it in. Compared to Mir, he sucks. I set up a blanket rule of 'if Shurelia or anyone else ever bothered to secure it against people with his amount of authorization, he can't get at it.' Of course Lyner is, in canon, also very good at finding people that will solve problems for him and do stuff he can't. _

_Most of the information his avatars use is just history, as opposed to high-security info. Most of what they do in terms of manifesting is cut-down versions of Ayatane's and Tastiella's abilities. It wouldn't have occurred to him to try most of that if he hadn't seen Ayatane do it. Without Infel Pira, he wouldn't have been able to show up in the Crescent Chronicle, for another example. Infel Pira is a 'casual user's' dream, unlike the Macs it's based on, since its security level is 'come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.'_

_The main strengths of his cosmosphere avatars are an accurate and in-depth knowledge of world history (knowledge being power) and the ability to talk people into things. In the game, he had one and a half of those. It was enough._

_However, at this point they're both completely wrong about Frelia. For various reasons, I really do think that Frelia is the most powerful reyvateil in existence (working with a certain definition of power, of course). She just got dealt an incredibly bad hand. The local planetary consciousness agrees with this assessment. Shurelia is a genius loci. Frelia is a demigoddess._

* * *

Lyner's two avatars had been nice to her, but it had still been very embarrassing for Aurica. She had to wonder: Were hers this bad? Guardian Lyner had assured her that they were crazier than most people's, but the other one had said that was because they were _less _single-minded and obsessive, and something about a succubus until the Guardian had taken a swipe at him and reminded him that chivalry aside, it was foolish to embarrass the nice young lady who had brought them funbuns, since if she ran away to hide how red her face was, she might take them with her.

Honestly, she thought the real reason they'd let her get close wasn't because she was Ayatane's sister or a virus or anything like that, despite why Leard had told her to go give it a try, let alone that she was Lyner's friend, but because she'd brought funbuns. Also, eating had given them something to do while standing watch besides getting into fights with each other and damaging more of the scenery.

"You see, we're supposed to be fighting," the devilish one had explained, "but he wants to protect Ayatane and I want to get what I want. It's not that your level six avatar isn't a nice piece of," he leaned back gracefully to avoid a rock thrown at his head. "What? I was going to say that I _hadn't _slept with her! For crying out loud!"

"No, you didn't share your affections with her. You _got her hopes up_, you vile fiend."

Miros beamed. "And I fully intend to make up for it by giving her Radolf on a silver platter with an apple in his mouth."

"You, attempting to ensure the happiness of others?"

"Of course it's an evil plot! I want nieces and nephews."

The guardian snorted. "And it's all about what you want."

"Exactly!" He beamed, and turned back to Aurica. "Right now, your brother is getting rid of the completion for me. All I have to do is make the conscious self see the benefits of selfishness, and then I'll be level eight, this nimrod can be thrown into a paradigm shift, and then I'll be about one-third done."

"Done with what?"

"Taking over the world," the Guardian said after swallowing. "Actually, he's about a third done already total, which is why Lady Shurelia's plan went so badly awry."

"You're just jealous that my method of ensuring eternal peace is working _so _much better than your nonsense."

"Wrong on two counts: First, if Nenesha and Infel understood happiness, then Metafalica wouldn't have failed in the first place. Being endorsed by those fools is just proof what you're trying won't work either. Second, you won't be able to pull off the final third either way: I threw the Linker crystal off the tower."

Linker? The one that had nearly let Mir possess her?

"Hm." The evil one seemed to think he knew something the other didn't. "When did you manage to pull that off, anyway?"

"While you were making advances on that… person _our_ Ayatane was named for."

"What? Oh, right, you mean the one in Tyria's tower, not Mir's guardian. By the way, stop it with the formal language and airs of disapproval. You're acting like the clone Leard always wished he had."

The guardian snorted and got up to check the perimeter, finishing his funbun.

"Tyria's tower?"

"Yeah, the goddess Tyria. She's Tillia to most people. Like Lady Shurelia is actually Eoria. Want another funbun?"

Actually, Aurica was growing to like them more the more she had. Maybe it was the honey brushed over the outside, that gave it a sort of sweet crunch. It was still a little hard to eat a funbun when she was inwardly flailing over the realization that she really _had _met one of the goddesses, and Lyner had grown up with her.

"Speaking of Tyria, our Ayatane isn't the first to come up with the idea of male reyvateils. Well, genetically male, anyway. They've got this research project on Tyria's tower and they're calling them y-sublimated. They didn't actually get rid of the block gene on the chromasome, they're just fooling it by fiddling with the hormone balance, so they end up looking female and thinking that they're female, except they can't have kids. Since the block gene is still there, the disruption does something weird to their frequencies. I'm glad Lyner didn't end up with twenty-four cosmosphere levels. That would take _forever_." Way too much competition. "Infel thinks they're trying to make more Frelias but don't know what they're doing. Something about D versus HD and frequency range differences between human and reyvateils. Freya's more of a demi-goddess than a goddess. Also, she's lazy."

"There's a difference between lazy and sheltered," the Guardian called, sticking up for Frelia automatically.

Miros laughed. "She grew up there after Shurelia sent her. Like Ayatane grew up here, only she thought she was normal. How could she have missed that Metafalss needed all the help they could get?" How could she have abandoned people so desperate and miserable they were happy to risk being murdered to retreat into fantasy for a few precious hours of happiness instead of starvation?

"She needed to stay with the sub-"

"Don't give me that. She was so useless up there that not only did nothing happen when she was so bored she put herself to sleep, nothing happened when she was kidnapped and locked up in the Teru village! The only useful thing she ever did was make that hymn to give some of her power to someone who was actually going to use it, and she should have just given them Linker and made it formal! Metafalica wouldn't have failed if it was Lady Shurelia there instead of her, and you know it."

"You're admitting that Lady Shurelia is an exemplary tower guardian when you want to dethrone her?"

"Better than completely useless still isn't as good as I will be, and Shurelia wants to retire."

"As though you'd stay in power. Infel might be reasonable, but Nenesha is a viper and you know it." No decent person would destroy Frelia's work and ensure that Sol Marta will never become a full server capable of supporting Metafalica alone, much less put programs in place inside Infel Phira to allow them to control the mind of the person they claimed to love. Nenesha might claim she sealed Frelia away because she was useless, but why hadn't she taken the opportunity to replace SolFage with Linker and taken Frelia's place? "After she's done with Frelia she'll be after you and Tillia next."

"Really? You're telling me this? Aren't we forgetting which was the one of us who said I shouldn't take advantage of the poor trusting little pink fuzzball who had just woken up and didn't know half of what was going on? _You _took her at face value. I'm the one who recognized a selfish power-hungry bitch who wanted to control everyone and everything when I saw one."

"It takes one to know one?"

"Exactly." Miros smirked. "Just like our outer self didn't recognize Falss." Ayatane was an entirely different matter. Ayatane was like them: he didn't have a selfish bone in his body. Except for one, buried deep… Miros really _had _to find that hymn Mir had used and ask Infel to help him retune it for not just longer lifespans but _viruses_. He could try downloading it and doing a Fusion, that should work, but he wasn't going to experiment on Ayatane.

"Give it up. You can't do any of this without Infel's help, since she knows how and you don't, and she'll betray you the moment Nenesha tells her to."

"Maaybe." Miros kept smirking and took another bite, smugly refusing to answer any more questions.

The Guardian might have pressed him, but that was when the 'victory theme,' as Jack had put it, played, signaling that the dive was complete. Both of them instantly forgot about their quarrel, and about her, so she had just… stayed out of the way until things settled down a bit.

Lyner hadn't hugged her much before, as much as she would have liked him to. There had been that barrier of formality between them, and she knew that he would have asked her not to come into his room at night without a chaperone, for her honor, if the thought of actually doing anything inappropriate with her had even crossed his mind. He'd considered himself that chaperone. Mostly, it was assumed that a reyvateil would be making herself available to her handler. She'd liked that he was treating her as a precious person instead of a possession, but the very respect that made her want him to touch her was why he wouldn't. She'd wanted to become more to him than just a reyvateil that had crossed his path.

Sister was close enough, she tried to tell herself. Close enough.

Better than nothing, and Lyner was so happy…


	14. Lost Boys

_I've always thought that one more example of the effect Lyner has on people was the way Ayatane was accepted again, not just as part of the group but by Leard and so on. He was even allowed to wander around Platina with Lyner, after all that he did and all that the invasions did. _

_It's not going to be that easy in this universe._

* * *

Leard was far from happy.

At least Lyner had been bright enough to drag Ayatane into the cathedral the back way, or rather one of the several back ways. There was the back way cadets used to sneak out to get drunk, the back way the janitorial staff used, the back way messengers and officials used for business, the secret passages (the Cathedral had been built with the defense of Lady Shurelia in mind, and sometimes the best defense was making the enemy think the target was someplace she wasn't), the routes people used to sneak out on dates when they just wanted to get to know each other without their friends finding about it and starting to relentlessly matchmake for their own good, and the actual shortcuts.

Leard and Lyner had both grown up in the cathedral and knew all of them.

The one Lyner had used to sneak the star singer out when they were children involved two trees and a section of wall. The trees had only been saplings when Leard was doing his own exploring, and back when Lyner had been coaxing Misha over the wall (not realizing that his generous offer to get her funbuns even if she didn't come was interpreted as a threat) the branches had been enough to safely bear their weight, but not much more.

Leard really wouldn't have put it past his son to bring Ayatane in through the center of town, stopping at the funbun stall and the department store on the way (or rather, going out of his way to visit them) like they weren't in a state of emergency and there was all the time in the world to treat Aurica to shaved ice and who knew what else.

Well, to be fair, his son did understand his responsibilities, even if he disagreed with some of them. Leard had actually expected him to do a sweep through the city just to get a look at the damage, see what people needed to rebuild, promise to help out just about everybody and want to know why Leard wasn't opening their stores of siege supplies, since they needed intact walls _now _and what else were those stocks for?

As though Leard didn't have a good reason for holding them back until it was determined whether or not they needed to restore the city to its original, _defensible _design. With barracks instead of houses spread out everywhere, right up to the walls on one side and the tower on the other.

The fact that he had done the sensible thing and escorted the virus in unseen showed that to Lyner, the virus was more important than looking over the city _and _irritating Leard put together. Not a good sign.

The atrocities that had been committed against the third generation in the days before diquility were there in the archives, if you were an adult and the librarians trusted you not to throw up on the ancient texts. Before diquility, third generation reyvateils often hadn't lived to reach twenty, and almost never made it to twenty-one. So, they'd needed to be constantly replaced, and to meet the demand they'd been… the term had been 'bred.' Like _dogs_, and they'd died like them.

Song magic had been necessary, in the world devastated by the Grathnode Inferia. So people had done their best not to think about it. Not to consider them people, because to refuse to avail yourself of the resources, like water in the days before the weather regulation system, produced from their suffering was to lie down and die. It had become an ingrained habit of thought, because the alternatives were madness and death. Even after the tower's construction was completed, and reyvateils were no longer a necessity, they were a useful tool. They provided sex, companionship, healing. Useful in war and industry. There was always a demand.

Then they'd started living, and some children had, as children did, asked _why_. Had pointed out how much reyvateils did for everyone, and how wrong it was to repay that service with torture instead of thanks. And reyvateils, more than just the betas like Mir, had started to live long enough to break free of the conditioning and question their place in the world while they still had time to do something about it.

It hadn't happened fast enough. Too many reyvateils really believed that they were things, and this convinced some of the ones who did have questions. Not to mention that singing too much without diquility blurred a reyvateil's mind, so they'd seemed unintelligent. Too many parents passed on those racist teachings to their children. Reyvateils living into their thirties had changed the shape of the world, and there were always those who fought change, especially change for the better, because it destroyed the stability of their lives and that was a terrifying thing. Laws had been passed to keep things the same, keep reyvateils downtrodden, instead of free them.

It was a time of great evil that had ended when Mir repaid evil with evil and that was why the Knights of Elemia still remembered. Still taught their children that _there would be none of this_. No human among them would be allowed to forget that they were _only_ alive thanks to the deaths of those reyvateils. No reyvateil would be allowed to forget that her ancestors had saved the world, and thus the world _owed them_, and they owed it to those who had suffered to hold their heads high, and never bow down.

There was no way to make what had happened to those children _right_. There was no way to repay them or ease their suffering. How did you apologize to the dead?

The only thing that could be done was honoring them. Protecting the world they had saved, ensuring that their daughters' daughters' daughters would never be reduced to victims.

Without grathmelding, reyvateils were more necessary than they had been since right after the Grathnode Inferia. Without diquility, they would start dying young, and need to have children in their teens since they wouldn't live into their twenties. They wouldn't want to have children who would suffer like that. So whoever denied them a choice in the matter would hold the power, as the supplier of reyvateils.

The IPD virus just made it even more certain that any reyvateil who tried to fight back could be branded an IPD, 'secured,' and…

It was _sickening_.

Once IPD outbreaks began, people would realize that song magic was still possible. They would start looking for ancient knowledge. That meant the Teru tribe, among others. Platina was safe for now, but eventually the lower world would develop more powerful airships, now that they knew it was possible to fly this close to the blastline. Tenba and others had helped rebuild Platina's airship: Leard would have to be a fool not to assume they'd studied it as much as they could.

Platina didn't just have the purest-blooded reyvateils, it now had males as well. With dog and horse breeding…

It was _unthinkable_, what they would do to his people, but it was Leard's duty to think of these things.

Hopefully, Lady Shurelia would be revived without any further problems. Hopefully, the Mother Virus could be re-imprisoned in the Crystal Chronicle until they could find some alternative means of sealing her away.

Leard and the Knights had war gamed the invasion of Platina many times, it wasn't a new concept. They'd just been invaded twice, in fact. But those were only invasions meant to kill or defeat. The thought of people invading in order to _capture_, to drag the children away to be tortured into servitude, raped and used to breed grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, fleeting generation upon generation that would suffer the same nasty, brutal and short excuses for lives?

In that scenario, they could build the city's walls as high as they wanted, but the only defense would be an offense, would be destroying the enemy's capability to attack them and breed IPDs to defeat them with. It would be to take the lower world first, and _do whatever it took_.

Because anyone who would do that to children, to _their _children, _had it coming to them_.

Lyner should have brought the virus to the cathedral and had someone summon Leard so they could do this properly, but when had his son ever done anything properly? No, that was unfair.

At least the guard knocked on Leard's door and announced them instead of letting Lyner barge in without any warning. It gave him a couple of minutes to pull himself together and hide what he'd been reading in his desk, along with the drafted contingency plans.

It didn't escape his notice that Lyner was holding Ayatane's hand, pulling him into the room. Probably so that Leard didn't have a chance to object and tell him to leave the virus outside, but it was a sign they were still connected.

"Are you alright? Ayatane said you looked about ready to fall over."

Leard frowned. He should have known that the virus would know him well enough to detect signs of weakness. His attempt to act as though things were business as usual and Platina was still strong had backfired. "I'm fine. What else did he tell you?"

Lyner didn't buy it, growing more worried by the second as he examined his father. "Lady Shurelia put herself to sleep to stop Mir. It didn't work as planned because of Infel Pira, so we're going to wake her up as soon as Sapphire-I mean Dist, brings back the hymn crystal we need."

"It's a powerful and ancient hymn that affects the tower itself. Do you think that you can sing it?"

Was that a rhetorical question? "It's for Lady Shurelia. And everyone." That meant it had to be done, without question, and Lyner would do it even it killed him.

This was one of those moments when Leard simultaneously felt so proud of his son that he could burst and so disappointed that he could crack his head open, banging it on his desk. Lyner had what it took to be a great leader. To guard Lady Shurelia. He had a quick mind that could pick up almost anything overnight (even grathmelding, when Leard still couldn't make diquility), he could make anyone want to follow him, he was capable of handling strategy and tactics (unless it was personal, but he was young, that would wear off), and he _understood_ what duty was. What the power he would inherit was _for_.

And yet he didn't realize that this was anything special. He'd treat his own life as a piece on the board: that was good, it was a sign of a good leader that they were willing to share the dangers their soldiers did. That they were willing to sacrifice their own life as well as the lives of their soldiers.

That was what Lyner didn't get. He'd let other people help him, there were other pieces on his board, and yet it was unthinkable to sacrifice any of them… except his own.

"You are not expendable," Leard said yet again. "By the way: if you so much as touch a sword before you are cured I will have you in chains."

Lyner did not look impressed, and he was right, that wouldn't hold a conscious reyvateil. Provided they had a fitting song magic.

Ayatane touched Lyner's head, and Leard thought he was going to do something to him until he removed a leaf. "I don't think we got all of them."

"Sorry." Leard hadn't noticed that Aurica had followed them in until then.

"It's not your fault, that tree always gets bits of leaves into everything," Lyner reassured her.

Yes, and Lyner never could get all of them. That was how they'd discovered that he'd snuck out several times, when they checked on the sleeping boy only to find a twig in the back of his collar.

"It's much worse trying to get through the branches wearing armor," Ayatane reminisced.

Speaking of climbing, "Do you think Aurica's too big to climb to the top of the fountain?"

"The fountain? You mean the statue in the park?" Of the Guardian and Songstress? "You used to climb on it?"

"No one is allowed to climb that fountain," Leard said for the umpteenth time. "Trees are one thing. Slippery wet stone is another. I don't know how many times you almost broke your neck."

"It's pretty safe if you've got someone bracing you on the difficult parts," Lyner said, ignoring Leard's order yet again.

"Lyner, we are in the middle of an emergency. You can be childish later." If he was still alive later.

Seeing him lie there unconscious had reminded Leard of how young his son was. It seemed like only yesterday he'd been climbing that fountain, yet it seemed an age since Lyner had let Leard hug him. He knew that he'd been pushing Lyner to grow up, he knew it was as necessary as what was done to the star singers, and yet he regretted all of it.

He doubted Lyner would believe that if he told him.

"Report or assessment first?"

"Report." That was better. "You may sit down." There were chairs, and Lyner might look much more alive now that he was conscious but he still didn't look well.

Lyner's story agreed with what Aurica, Radolf and others had seen, and the doctor's assessment of how he had been treated. The thought of that virus giving him diquility was almost as bad as the way Lyner glanced at him when he said that. His son _making breakfast _when he should have been focusing on escape was just as bad. Not only were his tactical decisions compromised by his relationship with the virus, but what that implied! "Then I… actually, I didn't remember Misha. I did and I didn't. I do now."

"The memories were sealed in your first cosmosphere, I think," Ayatane said.

"Be quiet. You'll be interrogated later."

"No, he'll report later."

Here it came. "Knights of Platina report. Enemy spies are interrogated. There's also some important information I have to give you, and I'm not going to just hand Mir information on the situation and our plans."

"It would be better if I were absent for that," Ayatane agreed. "What I don't know I can't reveal, and Mother could examine my thoughts, if she wished."

"Yeah, but there's a lot Leard doesn't know about Mir."

"I know enough. The Mother Virus was the head of the enemy forces during a war, and she's still a threat. Obviously we have information on her." Some of it was now in his desk drawer.

Leard hadn't wanted to feel sympathy for the Mother Virus. He'd wanted things to go back to the way they were before all this had happened. He hadn't wanted to order Jade to dig up Kyle's forbidden research into New Testament Pastallie hymnos because someday they might have to ask for volunteers to learn that language and take the risk of being driven mad in order to protect their children.

He hadn't wanted to read the logs of his predecessors and find _sympathy_. Find a dry, clinical, psychological assessment of the enemy commander with _rage _spelled out in the margins. Find out how many times Mir had been raped, and what they'd done to her when they realized she was deliberately wavering her frequencies to make it impossible to carry a child to term. Find that the punishment hadn't had any effect because it they were already being as cruel to her as they possibly could, and there just hadn't been any way to make it worse that they hadn't already started using the instant they thought of it.

To find that the leaders Mir had been fighting, except for Shurelia's faction, except for his ancestors, had been no better than she was. Had been willing to not just allow, not just protect, but _encourage _or require by law such atrocities.

Mir was evil. That was beyond question. She was a product of the evil of the past, and just by _fighting _her, that evil had been unleashed upon the world. Dealing with her had inspired Kyle Clancy and Bourd to go back to the way things had been.

The evil that had corrupted the Mother Virus now corrupted all she touched. She would exist as long as the tower. She would exist as long as there was evil.

To disregard Shurelia's wishes and wake her up? He had no right. No one had any right. Especially when by doing so he would release that evil upon the world.

Yet it was already here, and Lady Shurelia was their only hope of stopping it.

"Then don't you see? We don't have to fight."

Leard was struck dumb. He stared at his son. Had Lyner heard what he was saying? True, Lyner rarely bothered to think before speaking, but Mir had killed so many, not just in the past but now. She'd attacked Platina and decimated its defenders before Ayatane's plot came into play. Obviously they had to fight her. She'd attacked first. They had to defend themselves. The idea of just sitting back and letting her do even more to them was ridiculous. And were they supposed to just sit back and let her dump the other Wing? It was unbelievable.

It was unquestionable proof that the virus had tampered with his son's mind.

His hand rose to cover his face, because he would not show weakness in front of the enemy.

His son, his only child, his frustrating, precious boy with so much potential…

"Leard?" Lyner stepped around the table. "Dad?"

"I'm sorry." His hand did not shake, nor did his voice, but he felt his shoulders hunch in, just a bit, and straightened them. Parents were supposed to protect children, he was supposed to protect Lady Shurelia, and now both of them were lost.

It was hard to believe that he would get them back.

He wished the he could believe Lyner was embracing him because he'd forgiven him. He'd accepted years ago that his son never would. It was obviously another manipulation, another ploy, to weaken his resolve. Make him less willing to hurt his son by destroying that virus.

"I shouldn't have sprung that on you. I don't know if it'll work, especially since I'm a reyvateil. If we have to fight Mir, I'll fight her, but Ayatane is on our side, too. My side. So if Mir is determined to destroy us, she'll kill him as soon as she wakes up." He hoped that didn't happen. "He's going to tell her that his loyalties are divided, but I think she already knows. If she already knew that he was trying to save humans and didn't do anything about it, then maybe there's hope that this can just stop."

"No one who went through what she went through, no one who kept fighting for this long, is going to stop. You've always had a gift for understanding people, you'd know that if…" If you were yourself.

Ayatane knew this was his fault. "We should go," he said quietly to Aurica, taking her hand to guide her.

"She had to be sealed away because she can't be killed, right? So…" Ayatane closed the door behind them.

Aurica nodded, missing her family and aching for Lyner and his father.


	15. Keys To Their Hearts

_Ugh, another short chapter, but that's how the sections divide up…_

* * *

Jade and Unohana were waiting for them outside the door, since the guard had sent for them. For the moment, he ignored them.

"Why are you looking like that?" Aurica asked him.

He leaned against the wall opposite the door to Leard's room. "Lyner has had this… It may be my fault, since I told him why she was doing this and how I tried to find a way for her to spare Platina. He wants to save Mother." It was foolish, idiotic, but he still couldn't help loving him for it. "Mother wants to create a nation of reyvateils, with viruses like myself to serve as guards and so on. Lyner doesn't think that it will work. Everyone would be, everyone already is angry about what has happened. She'd have to hold on to power, deal with uprisings… She'd still be living in fear, and if she uses viruses to control the populace, that would just continue the cycle.

"He's right," Ayatane finally admitted. "He's right. She's doing the wrong thing, this can't possibly make her or anyone else happy. He wants to show her that there's an alternative. The one I thought of is worse than useless, it just… it keeps everyone alive, except for those that are already dead, but they'll still fight her. If she succeeds in this, if she wins, then she'll always feel this way. No, Reyvateilia was her dream, the hope of a safe place that she held on to, and if it fails? If she wins, she'll lose. I can't betray her, but I have to try to stop her. Unless she simply reaches out," he did as he described, then curled his fingers in like claws, as though he was crushing something in his grasp, "and deletes me."

"Do you think she will?"

"I don't know. If I betray her, the way everything else has and will… It will hurt her." His eyes narrowed and he caught hers. "Aurica, there's a hymn crystal in the Silver Horn. It's a song she crafted, out of her love for her parents, but they rejected it, and her. If I die, find that crystal. It may be the only way to end this besides shutting down the tower. She's bonded to the tower. She can only be stopped for good if she chooses to stop, and the only way for her to be killed is if she gives up, if she wants to die. That song will get through to her if anything can. If nothing else, Harmonius would lull her to sleep more powerfully than Chronicle Key, if that's what you wish for her. Stop her, Aurica. And take care of him for me."

"You're asking me?" He was willing to trust her with Lyner?

"You took care of him before I kidnapped him." He squeezed the hand he still held. "Better you than the Star Singer." He tried to make that a joke.

She wanted Lyner. She thought she always would, but not at that price. "I think there's another way. And they won't let you die."

"Who?"

"Lyner's cosmosphere avatars. They were talking about the other goddesses and the hymn crystal Linker, and someone named Infel."

"Infel. Infel Pira?"

Unohana waved for Jade to shush: even if this might be a show for their benefit, it was still valuable information.

"I think they mentioned that. What is it?" Aurica asked.

Jade ignored Unohana's advice. "What's killing us all. How would cosmosphere avatars know about the false song server?"

"False song server?" Ayatane paused. "Why didn't I think of that before?" He should have realized that as soon as Leard had told him where the magic energy was coming from. A false server was still a server, and this one was practically made for viruses. If he could cover his tracks so well Shurelia never suspected a thing, he should certainly be able to hack _that_.

…especially since it was broadcasting an unsecured signal that didn't require ID authentication the way Ar Tonelico's did. Too easy. But then, it was meant to lure reyvateils in…

So he _did _have options other than his trump card. "Aurica, can you think of anything else?"

"Well, they were arguing. One of them wanted to take over the world, but I don't think they were really that serious about it. They are Lyner, and he wouldn't hurt anyone."

Ayatane didn't roll his eyes. Lyner was perfectly willing to hurt people, it was called being a soldier. Well, it wasn't Aurica's fault, even people who knew better tuned it out.

"One of them wanted you to clear all the other cosmospheres so there wouldn't be competition, and he also wanted to set me up with someone." She blushed, unable to name Radolf. "So there would be nieces and nephews. They talked about Tyria's tower, that there were male reyvateils there, and some people that you were named after. The other one didn't think very much of Frelia. I'm sorry, it was all very…" Two Lyners, and there had just been so much tossed around so fast.

"So Infel did make herself into the administrator… That would mean it's possible she's still alive." Only if she'd ascended, that would have cost her body as well as her cosmosphere. "I could ask her to stop sending us power. No, Metafalss never does anything for free." Mother had been disgusted by the terms they'd offered, in exchange for her clearing land of its inhabitants and letting them move into it. Of course, humans being willing to kill other humans wasn't surprising. Mir had dropped that Wing of Horus partially as a message to them. That they were next was only part of it. "She must be getting something out of it."

"Infel Pira is optimized for networking: it's a very weak song server on its own. It uses the reyvateils it infects to power up its song magic." Jade watched Ayatane carefully.

"In that case, you would think she'd try to stop Shurelia from being woken up. If she had enough IPDs here, she might be able to manifest here, the way I do. Metafalss doesn't have a true song server, it has Infel Pira and Sol Marta, which draws power from Ar Tonelico. And they always want more." Ayatane smiled. "We may end up in the middle of a three-way war."

"Won't waking up Lady Shurelia fix everything?" The goddess?

"She should be able to jam Infel Pira's signals. Mother might even help." Ayatane certainly would. "Infel Pira…" It really hadn't been that long since the airship had been sent. The trip would take at least a day, more depending on how long it took them to either find the chest and code or find the chest and bring it back here. It should be obvious from what he'd said that he knew the code. "I should have told Dist the code…"

"Do cosmosphere avatars ever try to destroy the real personality?"

Everyone stared at Aurica.

Jade's answer was a simple, "Yes."

"All the time."

"It's very common. Many cosmosphere levels contain sealed self-destructive tendencies," Unohana was the one to explain.

"The level seven Lyner said something about using the Linker crystal to do something, once Ayatane had finished all the levels but him, that would get rid of the real Lyner and let him take Lady Shurelia's place."

Oh.

Not good.

"And he's been working to accomplish this?"

"The Guardian got rid of the Linker crystal."

"If Infel doesn't have a copy of that hymn, I'd be amazed. Frelia was meant to be temporary, until Metafalica was constructed. That was why she was given the ability to become a normal reyvateil, with a cosmosphere," Jade mused. Frelia had been constructed by Ar Tonelico as a goodwill gift.

"He'd have to be the only cosmosphere avatar left, to accomplish that."

"Not necessarily," Jade corrected Unohana. "He just has to be strong _enough_. If Lyner's level one was able to keep the boy unconscious, who's to say a level seven can't get control long enough to sing a hymn?" She knocked on Leard's door before opening it. "Commander? New information. Can this wait?"

"What is it?"

"We need to lower the number of cosmospheres Lyner has as quickly as possible. You too, sir."

"I don't have a partner," he reminded her. Newly-formed cosmospheres were hazardous, and he'd banned them to all but established partnerships after the first few accidents.

"Your partner has always been Lady Shurelia, Commander," she reminded him right back.

Lyner shook his head. No, he couldn't have just seen his father blush.

* * *

"Well, that was easy. I thought we were going to have to hunt for the code." Krusche was impressed.

Colonel Dist waved dismissively. "Professor Clancy's security has always been predictable. Now, to see if this is the proper crystal." He spoke a few words of the hymn language and observed the circles of text that formed around it. "Excellent."

"I'll have my men investigate the rest of this area," Radolf offered.

"No, no, you simply must come back with us." Allow someone who knew the true situation to remain in the lower world unwatched? They must think he was as simple as Jade claimed he was.


	16. The Better Part of Me

_Well, in any case, Ar Tonelico 3 came out this week in the US. Tales battle system, stripping reyvateils to make them more powerful, awesome music, I'm sure everyone here has heard about it. The bit I'm really looking forward to is meeting the local goddess, by which I mean the planetary goddess, not Tillia, although Tillia does look promising. Frelia, Croix, Shun & Cocona ended up the most impressive characters in AT2, Frelia because of the hints that she would be _very _smart if she wasn't distracted by doing the impossible (the reyvateil genetics lecture). It justified the whole Dr. Enju thing by making her more the equal of someone who could turn himself into a virus long, long before Mir did the supposedly-impossible by making Ayatane. _

_Due to the fact that the third tower had agents on Metafalss, I obviously can't write the second fic without knowing more about that tower's government and what they intended to gain by doing what they did (except information on IPDs and screwing over their ancient enemies by screwing over their client state/Metafalss) & what they'll be up to when the civil war happens. Of course, this fic has awhile before it wraps up, but _Songs of Experience_ will be forced to wait on me finally acquiring a PS3, because there really is no story-telling medium better than videogaming. _

_The important thing in writing is to show, not tell, and videogaming allows the writing staff to not just show but let the player _experience _it for themselves. It's an immersive experience, as close as we could get to living in Middle-Earth, or any other fantasy world. __Since the most important part of racism is the unconscious stuff that infiltrates the worldview of the victims and plays out in everyday life (Tales of the Abyss had an amazing amount of characterization in the battle quotes), that's the part I need to see, since I need to know what their government's position on and public sentiment (among the beta types that matter) would really be about a tower populated with humans and 'mudbloods.'_

_Yes, I am aware it's only Wednesday. I am posting early this week to let people know that I have a fic (or several fics, depending on the amount of the final bid and the bonus wordcount) up for auction on the lj group Help_Japan. If you want a direct link, go to my profile: the link where it says homepage will take you to my livejournal, where the top public post should link to the comment with my offer. I'd recommend checking out the rest of the post, though, because there are some good authors on there, and apparently so many authors are participating that the Help_Japan group added another post for them to make offers on. There are also posts offering art, physical goods, etc. etc. If there's a fic you wish existed, check it out: it's for a good cause._

* * *

"So I have to leave, while everyone else stays behind in danger." Knight Lyner, wearing the standard uniform, looked at the on switch of the airship.

"Without the chosen one, there's no way to stop the monsters from overwhelming the city. You know you have to find her." This level was just like when Lyner had left Platina the first time, except his mind had decided that Ayatane was a spy inside the enemy's ranks instead of his own.

He unbuckled the harness. "You should go. You can't fight for us here, not without the Queen realizing you've betrayed her. I should stay. I can't abandon my comrades."

Ayatane hesitated, knowing that this was a key decision. "Do you really think they'll just hand over the only one who can defeat her to a child of the Queen? You have to go. Everyone needs you to go."

"What if I can't find her fast enough? What if by the time I come back, you're all dead?" The Knight met Ayatane's eyes and broke character for the first time. "Seven isn't the only one who's up to something. Six has been too quiet this whole time, and you can't trust a word five says. I want to stay, to help protect you." He touched Ayatane's hand, where a ring would be. "But if I don't abandon- If I don't leave you here, without me to protect you, then it's just delaying the inevitable, isn't it? You can't fight the monsters without the talisman. You can't reach level nine without going through me."

"You can't be everywhere at once. No one expects you to. You try to do too much. You always have."

"It needs to be done."

"I'll stay and protect Princess Shurelia. And I'm not the only one. There are so many people who want to help you protect them, and everyone else. Who want to protect you."

"Are you sending me away so that I won't die when the city is overrun?"

"Yes." That was why Ayatane had let Lyner and Shurelia get to the airship in the first place. "That's part of it. You need to live. You're Princess Shurelia's only hope."

"I'm staying."

Ayatane caught him, refused to let him push past or draw his sword.

"I refuse to live if everyone else is dead!" I should be the first to die, so that they can live just a little longer!

All his precious people.

"You have to live! Or else who will remember them?" Because Ayatane had seen the Alter of the Apostles in this cosmosphere. Soon, very soon, this place would be overrun. "If you die, then there's nothing left of them!"

That made him stop. "Prince Ayatane… Protect Princess Shurelia for me."

"To the last." He'd never intended to let her die: Mother very specifically wanted her alive.

He hit the on switch, and Ayatane found himself in the sky again. "There's the Paradigm shift…" Was there anything else he needed to see? There wasn't time to find out, he had to hurry to Stonehenge.

There were the sounds of battle in the background, as he'd feared, and Lyner hesitated.

"Go."

"Ayatane…"

"Go!"

"How sweet. Trying to save your little pet?" This didn't look like Mir… Ah, this was the 'Tyria' she had pretended to be in Aurica's cosmosphere. "Don't worry, I'll let you keep him. He was so helpful, telling them what I let you find out…"

The knight stumbled at that, realizing that he'd been used to hurt his kingdom without ever knowing.

"Go! Go, or all of this is for nothing!"

Mir simply laughed. "If you leave and try to warn the other kingdoms, then I'll kill Ayatane."

"I'll avenge him. I'll avenge everyone," that was what you said in this situation, but still he hesitated. "Come with me!"

Lyner was trying to fight Mir when she was invincible? "No, just go!"

Ayatane felt Lyner's hesitation, the strain on their bond… but he went.

For Ayatane, he wouldn't just die. He'd live.

* * *

"That was fast." Unohana didn't look up from her crossword. Slow, for a dive into a normal reyvateil at this level of a partnership, but the new ones were difficult. And hazardous. "Send him right into the next one."

* * *

"Has anyone seen Lyner?"

"No, not me," said the song magic cheerfully as it grew the flowers in the park, "But I'll come with you."

The same thing happened with the one killing the viruses with sword slashes that worked on things inside the tower's systems in the Alter of the Apostles.

Hmm, why was there an unmarked key one at the tower?

The doors of the tower were open, but there was a gate blocking the way. "If you want to go through, you'll have to pay the toll."

Access to the Ar Tonelico magic on level 3? Expensive, but well worth it. The gate also fell on people, but it was when he went into the tower to get that magic that he finally found Lyner. "What are you doing hiding here?"

"I made songs to do all the things the villagers asked for, but now they didn't want me around anymore."

Oh. This one. He'd _thought _there would be one like this. "Don't be silly. They should be grateful to you."

Except they weren't. Was this how Lyner feared everyone really felt?

Should Ayatane tell him to never mind them, Lyner should come with him since he'd always want him around or say that the villagers would come around begging now that Ayatane had taken all their songs. But then, did Lyner want friends who only valued him for what he did for them?

In the long run, it would be better to try to find some way to win them over, for Lyner's peace of mind, but…

Coaxing him through the paradigm shift for Ayatane's sake was quicker. Even if he seemed regretful…

* * *

"Fast," the technician noted.

"Mmm." Unohana nodded, drinking tea.

"Do you think he's cheating?"

She arched an eyebrow at him.

* * *

In the next one, there was a war between the knights and funbun mecha that ended with everyone wearing funbun hats and vacant expressions. The fact the only sentence they said was how much fun they were having was another tip-off, if the replacement of the Dark Palace with the Mad Grathmelder's Castle wasn't enough.

"Are you _really_ sure you want me to go?"

"We've gone over this. It's not true happiness unless…"

"Not that. It's just that once I've moved on, the hard ones start. Five asked me to tell you that once I go through the paradigm shift, you have three minutes to find him and stop him from killing Leard."

"There's a time limit on the next level?"

"Oh, no. He was talking about the real Leard." He pointed at the paradigm shift. "The rest of the levels are all going to take place in the real world. Or maybe inside the systems. Their frequencies are still too high for it to be in the cosmospheres."

Three minutes was not enough time to get out of the machine, convince Unohana to listen to him, and run over to the cathedral.

Thank goodness for Infel Pira. "Dear, would you mind going in on three?"

* * *

Demanifesting and uploading himself to Infel Pira was easy. The fact that even though it didn't ID reyvateils it still had pointer locations for them meant it didn't take long to locate Leard, which was the part he'd been worried about.

The man was asleep at his desk: Ayatane scanned the room for assassins and found only old Jyu. "Lyner's level five cosmosphere avatar said I had three minutes to stop Leard's death." He drew one of his manifested swords. "I don't think you're him, but you are here… Wait a minute." He hadn't said _how _he was going to kill Leard. Of course, it might be a physical attack and it would take him three minutes to reach Leard… He shook Leard's shoulder, and found that he was much, much easier to hack than Lyner's level eight avatar had been. That let him use Leard's connection to Ar Tonelico. "Excuse me? Is anyone here?"

"Yes, but I'm a bit busy!" The sound of fighting came from up ahead: Guardian Lyner against three Leards.

"Your level five said that I had three minutes to stop him from killing Leard."

"Well, he's not going to try to get by me." The Guardian kicked and one of the manifestations went flying back into Leard's body. "As much as I hate to say it, you'd better take him out fast, even though that leaves me alone with Ley and Nyr. He's a good ally, but a double-edged sword: he really will kill Leard, if you let him. I'm honor-bound not to help you fight him, except in the course of my duty, but his name is Lyr, if that's any help."

Ayatane heard that as 'Liar.' "So he might not be trying to kill Leard?"

"No, it means he'll be tricky about it and you're going to have to work to save him. Get moving!"

He could home in on any of the reyvateils in Platina: he started with the ones in the cathedral, scanning the area and putting them on alert while he tried to think of what else someone could use to kill Leard. The forbidden weapons in the armory? A song magic that would obliterate the cathedral? A poison in the kitchens?

A poison…

* * *

"Sixty-three, sixty-two, sixty-one … Hello there, dear Ayatane."

Sitting on the edge of Platina's reservoir, the one Ayatane had contaminated to change the entire city, was himself.

Or rather, Lyner, wearing Ayatane's normal armor, and instead of a bottle of potion in his hand there was a manifested song magic over his head.

One that he activated as soon as Ayatane noticed it, the power going into the _water_.

"Lyner…. You said that you would give me three minutes to stop you."

Lyr laughed, Ayatane's own chuckle. "Dear Ayatane… I lied. That's what traitors do." He cocked his head. "I've got an antidote song magic floating around here somewhere. Shall we see if you can find it?"

He drew his swords. "How could you?" He knew that cosmosphere avatars were sometimes the opposite of the person, because they were what the complete person refused to be, but this?

"Because that's what I do. I betrayed Lady Shurelia by letting you get close to her, I betrayed Misha first by rejecting her sacrifice and then by forgetting about her because her words were too painful, I betrayed Aurica by loving you instead, I betrayed my father by refusing to be his heir and not just saying but making every sacrifice he made have been all for nothing… I could go on, but don't you have a city to save?"

A valuable ally… but a two-edged sword. A liar. A traitor. Willing to destroy Platina, to kill everyone, or worse: to treat their fates like some kind of game, like they were his to toy with. "Is this really how you see me?"

"There, don't you feel betrayed? That's right, I despise you. Or rather, I would if I was a good, noble person. This me is a traitor. Just. Like. You. And that's why I like you. Otherwise, well, of course I wouldn't. Not the valiant Platinum Knight. Not a virus like you."

He knew, he knew that this wasn't the real Lyner. He knew that, and yet his breath caught in his throat.

And then Ayatane Lyner lunged forward with Ayatane's own speed, and pressed a sword just like his to his throat. Ayatane lunged back, but Lyr could keep up. And more. "Aren't you forgetting something? I'm a cosmosphere avatar. I'm Lyner's inner you. And he's always thought that you were so much better than you actually are. In real life, you're not this fast. Not this strong." He stamped on Ayatane's left wrist after letting Ayatane get his back to the wall, breaking it. "Not to mention that I can use song magic and you can't, now. Maybe it's a good thing you hung around, because the antidote song is already here, in my head. But I'm not going to sing it. So why don't you just sit and wait. They'll all be dead, your mother will be asleep, there won't be anyone left for us to hurt. Except each other. _Dear_ Ayatane."

Alright, this was trump card time.

Letting go of human form, he spun himself into black virus and poured into the manifestation of the other, too fast for him to escape into the tower.

"Alright." Yes, this was so like his own body. Except: "Exec_Hymme_Impulse, Exec_Hymme_Courier, Exec_Hymme_Ar=Tonelico, Exec_Hymme_Elixir." There, that one was the strongest healing magic Lyner had: it would take him awhile to work his way to up it, though.

Well, he had better get started.

Lyner's healing magics took the form of children grathmelding with first a test tube, then a beaker, then a jar… Waaaaait.

That looked _exactly the same as the song magic Lyner had used on the water_.

Lyner didn't even _have _a poisoning hymn!

He hit himself in the forehead so that Lyner's body would still feel it when he left.

Lyr looked unrepentant. "What, don't tell me you actually believed that was poison. I told you I was a liar. On top of that, I'm Lyner's inner you, remember. You lie so much you sometimes believe your own stories. You have a sense of humor that doesn't quite know the difference between teasing and cruelty. You'd plan out how to massacre people, for your cause, you'd seriously believe that you were going to go through with it, maybe even up to the last second on the countdown." Lyner smirked. "But you'd never actually do it. You just don't have it in you." Then his eyes grew bleak. "I do, though."

"You always think that I'm better than I am. And I want to believe in that self." Dear Lyner. "You're the reason I couldn't do it."

The fondness in his eyes was returned by his mirror image. "You're a good person, Ayatane." He took Ayatane's hands, the left wrist healed by the hymn. "I want you to know that. And… maybe I am like you. Maybe I won't actually…" The ground glowed beneath his feet, golden light flaring around them. "I'll try to believe, in the me that I am in your eyes." He squeezed, then let to go give him a hug. "Careful about Six. He bites. I bet he's got an ambush waiting, but you should have a while before you have to deal with the me who_ does_ want to kill people. I'll wait for you."

Then he was gone.

Leaving Ayatane to calm everyone down before they had heart attacks.

Inferia, _Ayatane_ might have had one if his bodies worked that way.

* * *

_People who've played through a few cosmospheres have probably noticed that the ones I'm writing kind of suck. Compared to the games, they're not detailed enough, they're too easy, and so on. There are several reasons for this. A major one is that Lyner is a new reyvateil. His cosmospheres aren't as old and full-formed as those of the reyvateils in the games, and the avatars were recently copied off Lyner's core personality, which is all about sacrificing himself and his own needs to make things easier for other people. You might also notice that Ayatane kind of sucks at this. Especially compared to Lyner, but really, he's no good at all. This is part of his character in the game: he really can't deal with or hide his own emotions, made to be a spy or not. Lyner doesn't believe for a second that Ayatane is really an enemy because he's practically screaming that he doesn't want to be, and there's a scene where Ayatane's emotions decide to cut his idiot brain out of the command loop and Ayatane is left wondering what happened and what he's going to do now after his body moves on its own. Ayatane wants to make Mir happy and be friends with Lyner and he doesn't have any idea how to manage any of it. Fortunately, that's what Lyner is for. And he's very good at it. I tend to attribute this to empathy/instinct on Lyner's part more than conscious knowledge. Empathy is feeling someone else's pain due to experiencing it, or an analogue of it, for themselves, and nice people are often eager to do for others what they wish someone had done, or would do, for them. Physician, heal thyself... except it doesn't work that way, people need other people._

_I need to write that argument between Lyner and Mir about acceptable content in children's literature. Was I the only one that thought that Shurelia's level five cosmosphere had _massive _unfortunate implications? I suppose writing the reyvateil-equivalent as a hapless test subject that needed a human's help and was doomed to die instead of living free was a case of write what you know for the young Mir, but you'd think she would consider it an old shame, these days. It was weird to see the crusader for reyvateil rights perpetuating such racist ideology instead of trying to create a more positive self-image for the youth of Reyvateilia. Anyway, if that had been a real cosmosphere, completing it under those circumstances would have strengthened the reyvateil's suicidal tendencies. Not good. And this was Shurelia, who had already demonstrated a desire to 'just sleep forever.' That would probably ring alarm bells in the heads of anyone, like Lyner, able to make it to Aurica and Misha's level nines without a strat guide. On top of Lyner's knee-jerk reaction to seeing a reyvateil be victimized. Still, it was a good link to Mir, to show that Lyner's cosmosphere-solving skills weren't restricted to real cosmospheres. Lyner's warrior therapist skills aren't an informed ability, they've been affecting gameplay almost the entire game. Very cool. _

_Cosmospheres sort of act like biohazard containment for sanity-destroying stuff. Failing to resolve an issue looses it into the next cosmosphere. An incompetant diver can actually damage a reyvateil's mind more the more levels they clear, because the cosmospheres are there for a reason and it's to keep stuff out of the deep subconscious & conscious minds. If Ayatane was recapping these for Lyner later, Lyner would be wincing almost constantly. When _Ayatane _notices that he might have made a mistake, he _really _screwed up. There are a lot of other mistakes in here, the fact he's trying to speed through helping someone else resolve their issues (which I tried to convey in the rushed feeling of the prose) being the first one. And since these are cosmospheres, obviously that's going to have very bad consequences later. Lyner's level seven (sevens are generally the 'evil' avatars, to start with), is actually counting on this._


	17. Through The Looking Glass

_Since there was all that fuss over the translation accuracy in Ar Tonelico 2, since they messed up a few things relevant to the mythology, can anyone tell me if NISA left the goddess of the third tower's name as Tyria, the way it was spelled in Ar Tonelico 1, or changed it to Tillia? That would be a good way to check whether the translation team actually did their research into what the creators intended and how to accurately translate it or just bowed to pressure from people who translated the letter of the words but didn't grasp the meaning. _

_Because they were right in Ar Tonelico 1._

_The correct English spelling, _as opposed to Hymnos or Japanese spelling_ (both of which use different alphabets and phonetic systems, remember) of the name is Tyria. 'Tillia' is as bad a mistake as Star Ocean 3 writing 'Azazel' as 'Azazer,' and it loses the mythological symbolism the game's creators intended when they chose that name. Imagine if Capcom had written Amaterasu as 'Ehmehtelazoo' in Okami: it sounds about as similar to the correct version as Tillia does to Tyria, but no English speaker would look at that and realize it's the name of the goddess, meaning the entire point of the game would have been lost. At least the symbolism behind Tyria's name isn't that important to the plot._

_Anyone who can tell me why Tyria is correct gets a cookie for knowing their mythology. I'll give you a couple more hints: remember the meaning of Ar Tonelico, and there are two spellings of Frelia's name in common use. Neither of them is 'Frelia.' One contains the letter J._

_Yes, I know that I use Frelia in this fic even though it's not a correct version of the goddess' name, but I treat Frelia/her correct name as equivalent to Shurelia/Eoria, since Eoria is Shurelia's official name, in-universe, and Shurelia was a nickname her father gave her. Frelia also lived among the humans of Metafalss incognito, and using her real name would have made her nature obvious: the misspelling hides the real meaning just like Tillia hides what Tyria means. Shun & Shurelia knew her back then, so I'll have them and people who don't hold her in awe use it in the fic, but Church personnel should mostly use the correct spelling, just as they call Eoria Eoria and use the correct spelling of Tyria's name in Ar Tonelico 1. _

* * *

"It's alright, he went through a paradigm shift. The next one is level six, so I don't think that one is a threat to anyone but myself." Ayatane half-bowed to Leard. "My apologies for the disturbance."

"According to Jade's report, it's the upper levels that are the problem." Still, "We need Lyner for ReNation. No more diving until after that."

"There won't be diving involved. Apparently, Lyner's frequencies are still too high at the upper levels of his cosmosphere. That was why his fifth level avatar tested me in the real world."

"Cosmosphere avatars in the real world?" He'd gotten Unohana's testimony about what had happened the first time Ayatane had dived into Lyner, but it was still mind-boggling.

"Apparently level six may ambush me. Either way, that shouldn't affect Lyner's ability to sing ReNation."

"See that it doesn't."

"Yes, Commander." Ayatane seemed almost happy, to be given an order like that. Like old times, when he was a Knight.

He vanished again, hopefully just going back to Lyner's side. A useful ability, that.

A deadly one, potentially.

* * *

Now that Ayatane had the chance to take a look at it, Infel Pira honestly gave him the creeps. Hearing about the Metafalica project had inspired Mother and given her the hope to create Harmonius: how sad that this was the result of Metafalica, as Mother's campaign and imprisonment were the result of Harmonius.

Perhaps both could be redeemed?

This place, this slaughterhouse… the virus here? It destroyed cosmosphere avatars and guardians. The screams echoed throughout all of it, every hymn it powered drenched in the blood of young spirits. And without those outlets, without those pieces to hold back the trauma, the suffering, the internal conflicts? Without the ability to repress, to ignore, and eventually overcome?

They went mad. All of it was turned upon the world.

The fear of becoming infected, the trauma of losing family to IPDs… those were great pains.

This place manufactured madwomen.

It was a relief to find the backdoor into Sol Marta.

* * *

"Excuse me?"

Two heads, pink and teal, that had been bent together over a book looked up at him. In the distance, pairs of indigo and pale gold played together.

"Yes?"

"Can we help you?"

"Sorry to intrude, but have either of you seen any cosmosphere avatars? Male, blond, about so tall, rather handsome, belonging to a Lyner Barsett?" He held his hand at the appropriate height.

"Oh, Guardian and Miros?"

"They've both been very kind." They met each other's eyes, clasping a hand together.

"So that would make you Infel and…"

"The only Holy Maiden Nenesha," the pink-haired one answered. "And who might you be?"

He bowed, despite wondering why she had made a point of 'only.' Was she saying that the other holy maidens weren't legitimate, or was it something else? Come to think of it, there was something odd about her. "Ayatane Miros, partner of Lyner Barsett, at your service, Ladies Nenesha and Infel." Or was the correct address 'your holinesses?'

Infel's eyebrows rose above the rims of her glasses. "An Apostle of Elemia? We heard of them, even in Metafalss."

"Frelia's attempt to do something similar wasn't as successful," Nenesha added wryly.

He bowed in acknowledgement, not mentioning that he wasn't one, not anymore. "I thank you for loaning us the power of Infel Pira, and I apologize for Ar Tonelico no longer supplying your tower with its traditional amount of song magic, but Lady Shurelia should awaken soon. There's no more need to broadcast Infel Pira's power to Ar Tonelico."

"I'll stop as soon as Lady Shurelia returns," the teal-haired one, who Ayatane knew must be Infel by process of elimination, assured him. "That was the bargain."

"Yes, about that… Would you mind telling me exactly what my partner agreed to? I'm almost to the seventh and eighth cosmospheres, and Lyner would hate failing to live up to his end of a bargain." Oh! That was it. "You're a cosmosphere avatar, aren't you? Lady Nenesha."

"Yes." She sighed. "My outer self… A long time ago, Infel and I became partners. We were determined to create another song server to compensate for the damage Sol Marta had suffered, so there would finally be enough power to create Metafalica, with the help of the hearts of the people. We both reached level nine, and our cosmosphere avatars worked together here on the theory and hymns as our outer selves worked to bring everything together. It was our unbreakable bond that would allow us to sing the combined Metafalica to both servers. But… everything went wrong, because of the selfishness of..." It was too painful a memory to speak of yet, and just thinking of it made her angry. "Infel's inner self was destroyed, I was damaged, and my outer self went mad. Infel was…" Infel was everything. "My outer self managed to combine what was left of Infel's inner self with her outer self, so she could remain whole, but she was so afraid of Infel leaving her that she took that choice away from her."

Without the option of leaving, how could staying mean anything? Without the option of not loving, how could love be true? "She… she forgot everything that we had worked for. She was willing to…" Nenesha's eyes hardened, and Ayatane could see how this person, who seemed so pink and poofy, had inspired a tower. "Miros freed me, and I destroyed my outer self before she could destroy the personality of the current Holy Maiden and take over her body."

"…Well." That was a story. "Do you still intend to create Metafalica?"

"Of course." She would not lose to what had prevented it the first time, not again. Never again.

She would avenge Infel.

Infel looked away, remembering Sublimation and everything that had seemed right only because it was _Nenesha _that was saying it.

"I'm sure Lady Shurelia would be happy to help, once everything is sorted out." Now that he thought about it, Mother was a great programmer and creator. Surely she would be able to help them, or keep an eye on them, and if she went to another tower, where no one had ever heard of Mir, then she could leave her past behind her.

These two were used to slimy politicians and other fakes. They could see right through his good cheer, and were obviously unimpressed. "Is there anything else we can help you with?" So that you can hurry right along?

"No, I'll be fine. I'll give both of them your thanks when I see them next."

Instead of doing the sensible thing and returning to Ar Tonelico, away from the suspicious pair of demi-goddesses (that was probably what Aurica would call them), he wandered deeper into Sol Marta. He didn't really think there was anything Frelia, or anyone else for that matter, could do to hurt Mother, but just in case… Hmm? "What's this?"

The only full personality that should be stored in the tower like this was Frelia's. Did this tower have more like Mir, Infel and Nenesha?

"Just what do you think you're doing?" The data manifested in the form of a blue wolf-like creature?

"You're a virus, aren't you?" There was someone else like him?

"I most certainly am not. I am Shun, Lady Frelia's… and stop poking at my data when I'm talking to you!" Did this strange young man have no shame?

"You may serve Lady Frelia, but you're a sentient consciousness hacked into the tower. That makes you a virus. Or are you? You're certainly no reyvateil, but what's all this?" So much compressed data?

Ayatane reflected that Lyner's foolhardy streak must have rubbed off on him, as he unzipped a package. Really, it was too easy. This virus might have been created by hacking, but whoever designed it hadn't really considered the possibility that someone might try to hack it.

The image of the blue wolf wavered and became a man who might have had hair the color of the wolf's fur when he was younger, before most of it turned to grey. "You're a human?" Ayatane couldn't believe it. "A human who became a virus?" That made turning a human into a reyvateil look easy. It made turning a human into an _origin-class _reyvateil look easy. "What's your real name?"

"My name is Shun," he insisted, rezipping those physical data files. "My original personality is almost all compressed, so it doesn't matter. My purpose is to assist Lady Frelia. So, you're a virus, are you? Another of Infel's projects?"

"No, I'm from Ar Tonelico. My name is Ayatane, and my partner is Lady Shurelia's assistant. Since I have the capability to travel here, I thought I should see if I could find out how Frelia is doing?"

"Not well," Shun said dryly. "No one's seen her for seven hundred years, since Nenesha and Infel kidnapped her."

"Have you tried pinging her pointer location? Mother wrote me a few programs to compensate for signal jamming." And the other things Shurelia had tried to keep Mir from reading her mind. "If you have data over time and she's been held in the same location, I could pull up records of Sol Marta's fluctuations and compensate for them as well." Ayatane wondered if he was babbling.

"Have I tried what?"

"Pinging her… Oh. You created yourself, didn't you? It's a fantastic achievement just to translate human data into tower data." And Shun seemed to have mostly stopped there. That made sense: humans only lived so long and his scientific genius seemed to be locked in those compressed files. "Mother designed me to exist in and navigate the tower. She gave me the ability to use a few tricks." She'd also written some specialized compression algorithms to manage to get emotions and sentience in virus form.

"I have a few tricks of my own." Shun was still suspicious: nothing was ever free.

"Perhaps we could compare notes sometime? I've never met anyone like me before. I didn't know anyone else existed." He wanted to stay, but… he did need to get back to dear Lyner. "Here's this program, Mother wrote very good annotations," since he'd needed to teach himself from it while she slept. "And you might find these compression types helpful." For unlocking more of his personality without ruining his ability to function. "I need to get back before anyone figures out how long I've been gone. I wasn't supposed to try visiting another tower yet."

Knowing what rule Ayatane was breaking seemed to reassure Shun. "How did you get here, by the way?" Maybe it was possible to go to Ar Tonelico and ask for Eoria's help?

"…If you don't know about pointer locations, I wouldn't try it. Especially since Ar Tonelico is in security lockdown right now. We should be waking Lady Shurelia up in a few hours, but I'd still wait until things have settled down. There was trouble with the Moderator accounts and there are some cosmosphere avatars in the systems." There, that nicely avoided any mention of Mir.

Weren't there supposed to be? That was what level nines were for, unless this Ayatane wasn't talking about level nines. Lower levels with _moderator _access? "You should hurry back."

"It was nice meeting you." Was this how Aurica felt?

It wasn't as though Ayatane didn't have family, and Lyner. He didn't have any excuse to feel lonely, but… There was someone else like him.

* * *

By the time he actually did go back to the dive shop, or rather the ruins of the dive shop, Unohana had already opened his capsule and Lyner's. The dive technician would have noticed his disappearance the instant it happened. Safety protocols required that divers be watched very carefully for things like incipient braindeath, seizures, psychosomatic wounds and a host of other problems. Increases in heart rate, signs of panic: there were all sorts of early warning signs, but diving was a trust-building exercise, among other things. The diver needed to face the danger, so the dive technician had to wait until the last possible second, pull them out only when they were immediate danger of death.

One of the most telling signs was when the diver lost an eye. The eye was almost a part of the brain, so if their body got vaporized in the cosmosphere during a deep dive and psychosomatic wounds started to occur due to the synchronicity, they were often destroyed seconds before the rest of the body was, giving the dive technician time to hit the buttons that pulled the diver out and administered medicine.

The diver instantly losing their whole body, though, was probably a new one. Or not. What evil lurked in the hearts of men & reyvateils? Dive technicians knew.

None of them seemed to have panicked: that was good. Unohana and Lyner had turned around when he'd manifested, but they were holding the clothing he'd been given in Em Pheyna. He must have left it behind.

Normally, Ayatane destroyed the clothing he'd been wearing as well as his body when he disappeared, and made a copy of it to wear when he reappeared, but he hadn't wanted to actually _store _what amounted to prison garb.

The string was scratchy, for one thing.

More importantly, he didn't look good in it at _all. _Mother had warned him about the danger of falling into the uncanny valley if he decided to design new faces and bodies for himself, and when he was wearing _that _his normal form looked like it was about to topple over the edge. It wasn't a matter of vanity, it was a matter of being seen as a human instead of a monster.

Lyner knew everything and still didn't see him as a monster.

"Welcome back," his friend said, and it was strange that he'd been thinking clearly enough to report and gather intelligence before and now, now he collapsed with relief, falling to one knee right in front of him.

One hand touched his shoulder, the other the spikes of his armor until Lyner lifted it again and put it in his hair. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

Ayatane shook his head. "You didn't. Well, some minor wounds, but no worse than a serious spar." Was this why everyone else loved Lyner? Why Misha and Aurica had kept sneaking into his room and night to talk about the smallest things and rest? This feeling that when he was here, you were safe? That the rest of the world didn't matter? A quiet space with someone who would listen, someone who cared? "You would never hurt me," he said, without thinking that someone else might hear that and think of mind control.

When they'd grown up together, Ayatane had always had to hold back the truth. He'd wanted to give Lyner this feeling, be the one to protect him when everyone else expected him to protect them, but there was something… It was such a relief, to not have to be the strong one all the time.

* * *

_And here we are introduced to a character I consider the Ar Tonelico equivalent of Atelier Iris 2's Elusmus. Transformed themselves into another form to keep watch over the one they love (or rather there is copious amounts of subtext), connected to a robot girl responsible for keeping a populated land airborne (although Elusmus is more Yuveria's father), stuffy, jaded and somewhat contemptuous of those around them. _

_Ayatane has more than a little of 'what measure is a non-human or reyvateil,' going on, and according to Word of God someone sent me the game designers were in fact very prejudiced against him/didn't consider him a real person, and thank god they weren't able to include that in the game, so this is very nice for him._


	18. Beautiful World

_Last week, I asked if anyone knew the mythology behind Tyria's name. Answer: _

_Tyria was named for a god that, although fairly obscure today, was actually a very important figure in Norse mythology, important enough to have a day of the week named after him. _

_Tyr, the Norse god of war, was called Chew or Tew in England, from whence comes Tuesday, or Tew's Day. _

_As you can see, although there are valid alternate spellings of the name, Till isn't one of them. Since L and R are the same letter in Japan, however, and the Y here uses an I sound, I'm sure you can see how the same katakana could be used for both Tyr and Till and cause the problem. _

_The three goddesses fit the 'maiden, mother, other one' trope, with Frelia (aka Freya/Freyja) as the maiden, Tyria as 'the other one' and Eoria/Shurelia as the mother. The most likely source of Eoria is the Norse goddess of (among other things) childbirth: the two Norse goddesses most appropriate for the 'mother' position are Frigg and Nanna. Sadly, Frigg's name is generally only heard nowadays when people take it in vain, and Nanna connotates 'Nanny,' which is not a very impressive name for a goddess. Does anyone know if they actually did name Eoria for Eir? If so, I'd be impressed that they actually did their research._

_RIP, Diana Wynne Jones, author of the Chrestomanci Chronicles, _Howl's Moving Castle _and many other great books__. I'd like to take this opportunity to recommend one of her books, _Eight Days of Luke_. The names I just mentioned will spoil the plot, but it was great to see a book where the author did enough research to know, for example, that Loki was one of the nicest of the Norse gods (unless there was a clever trick involved). Pray to Odin or Thor to save a child's life and they'd just LOL at you: Loki would help. It's interesting that before he got demonized, Loki was, among other things, a hearth god. It's sad that Shin Megami Tensei is kind of locked into portraying him as some degree of bad guy since he was a bad guy in the books it was based on. Even in Nocturne he was just sitting around in a bar drinking, which is typical Aesir behavior, but Loki wasn't Aesir except by blood-brotherhood. _

* * *

"Where were you? Nevermind. We still have five more cosmospheres to complete. If you're not injured, get back in the dive machine," Unohana ordered.

Ayatane shook his head. "Four more. The fifth is complete and the rest can't be reached with a diving machine. Commander Leard said that we should stop for now, after… I was tested in the real world. It got rather… I'm alright, don't worry," he told Lyner. "Or do you have another reason for taking my armor off?" Lyner's right hand had started unlatching some of the buckles.

"A battle in the real world?" Was Ayatane sure he was alright?

"He threatened to kill Commander Leard. It turned out the whole thing was a bluff- you don't even _have _a poison hymn. You used a healing hymn on the reservoir."

"A healing hymn?" Lyner closed his eyes, trying to focus on the hymns. They were parts of his mind, regular emotions except not, it was kind of strange. "Hmm… I think I need to work up to it, but did it sound like this?" He took a breath, trying to concentrate.

Since that wouldn't help him identify it, Ayatane said, "You didn't sing it aloud." So he would only recognize it if Lyner used the actual song magic, and Lyner didn't have the emotional control to imagine there was someone that needed healing that badly.

"My cosmosphere avatars don't need to use the words?"

Ayatane shook his head.

Lyner did the same, disappointed with himself. "I still can't focus if I don't use the words." Hymnos was a language of emotion. "And I can barely focus even then."

"It's just like using a sword, dear Lyner. You aren't going to become an expert overnight." Ayatane took over unbuckling his armor. He took off his swords as well, so that Unohana didn't break into the conversation to order him to disarm.

"Should I call you dear too?" Lyner thought for a second. "I like your name. Ay-a-ta-ne."

"Whatever you like, dear. I'll probably keep using your name as well. Or dear Lyner."

Armor off, Lyner touched Ayatane's face again. "This is what it's supposed to be like." All the stories, all the couples in the halls, training fields and closets. "I never thought I'd have this."

"Because you were to be Lady Shurelia's knight, and Platina's commander." Lady Shurelia didn't need a dive partner, no one was going to court him under those circumstances and it had never occurred to Lyner to court anyone. Aurica and Misha had been dropped in his lap. He'd been willing to help make them stronger, but court them? When he had other responsibilities? When they had been placed in his guardianship for the sake of a mission? He would never. Courting someone who had been assigned as a mission was forbidden, both because of ancient tradition and because if they rejected the guardian that meant no more dives were possible. It forced the reyvateil to go along with it or fail the mission. Lyner would never put one in that position.

"I still have to be both of those." Lyner pulled on Ayatane's shoulder a bit, wanting him to stand up. "Leard really looks old now. He's so tired." It wasn't about being forced into things (like torturing Misha's future daughter) anymore. His father needed him.

"He was sleeping at his desk, earlier." Now he felt bad about waking him up. "If Mother will help us… It's the telomeres that control aging, I know that much."

"Telomeres?"

"They protect the data from being corrupted. As they get worn away, more and more corruption can happen. Origins don't age because there's a section of the tower dedicated to ensuring that nothing can happen to their data. There's nothing any virus could do to harm Lady Shurelia, and Mother and I have similar protections."

Lyner would age, even as a beta-type. Ayatane would live as long as the tower.

Unless he was killed or chose to die.

Except Lyner wasn't an ordinary beta-type. Physically, yes, but he had the same connection to the tower that Mir did.

"Are you ok?"

"Why do you ask, dear?"

"You looked almost terrified for a second there."

"I thought about outliving you. Don't worry, I won't. Not because I intend to die," he said to cut off Lyner's objections, "but because if the tower can give Mother immortality, then it can give it to you. The tower should…" his breath caught. "That's why you've needed so much diquility. How much has Leard needed?" He turned to Unohana.

Was he really expecting her to give him information on medical treatment?

"It's important. Lyner needed two crystals a day – have you been taking your diquility?"

"Without you? We're partners." That was, that was cheating. Sure, if he'd been near death he would have asked Aurica. If a reyvateil needed diquility, then they needed diquility, but it hadn't been necessary. He'd known that Ayatane would follow him.

"We've been giving Commander Leard diquility once a week, the same as the others afflicted by your virus."

"I'm not certain, but the two of them might be connected to Ar Tonelico the way Mother is. That involves an enormous flow of power and thoughts between her and the tower, and diquility is used to shield those with human blood from the effects of magic power running through their bodies. Perhaps that's why he's aging so quickly: if he's like Lyner, then once a week isn't enough."

"Normal third-generation reyvateils only need once in three months." The ex-humans needed so much because they had changed suddenly: the channels had practically been ripped open instead of opening naturally. The flow of power was anything but smooth, and that resistance damaged their bodies without diquility.

"Lady Shurelia would know, wouldn't she?"

"Of course," dear Lyner. "Lady Shurelia _is_ the administrator." Oh dear. "I hope she won't be too angry with me."

Lyner wanted to say something comforting, but they both knew she was going to be _furious_. Hurt, too. Now that Lyner knew the history (it had been classified) he knew that Kyle's betrayal must have hurt her, and now Ayatane? "You probably shouldn't be there when we wake her up, huh. But I want you to help me download the hymn."

"Of course, dear."

"Have you slept?"

"Not since I woke and found you gone." How could he have slept, with Lyner missing?

"Sorry."

"No you're not."

"I'm sorry about worrying you, not escaping. I was asleep for awhile, so if you take a nap once they get here… Actually, I'll probably join you before you wake up. They probably won't be back with the hymn crystal for several more hours." That would be nice, to get into bed and snuggle up to Ayatane while he was asleep. Would Ayatane blink at him muzzily, smile and go back to sleep, or would he remain asleep, used to Lyner's presence? It wasn't fair, that Ayatane had gotten to sleep with him so much more than Lyner had gotten to sleep with Ayatane. Sure, Lyner had been asleep most of the time, but he hadn't gotten to fall asleep or wake up, not really. When Ayatane put him to sleep, all of a sudden he was dead to the world, and then he came to. It was not the same thing as getting to lie there drowsily, warm and knowing why.

…given how much he kind of wanted to chain Ayatane to a bed just for that alone, his sixth cosmosphere avatar was probably pretty strong, huh. Luckily, everyone knew there were two ways of dealing with them: figuring out the right words to say to reassure them that you weren't going to hate them or abandon them even if you weren't interested was the quick way.

The other way tended to keep dive capsules tied up for a week or two, because it took awhile for two teenagers (generally) to get bored with doing nothing but having sex. Still, it was a good way to _prove_ that someone wasn't going to try to escape their partner and was happy to be with them. No matter how weird their partner was.

He was kind of jealous of his sixth cosmosphere avatar, but then a lot of people were.

Even so, he kind of hoped that it would take the long way, because that would keep Ayatane out of Leard and Lady Shurelia's reach (hopefully?) until they calmed down.

He'd have to sleep without Ayatane there, but at least he would be there again _someday_. With him in his heart, too. Saying that was not only incredibly sappy, but true! Everyone knew cosmospheres were a reyvateil's heart.

Before all this started, Lyner hadn't been hugged in awhile. Lady Shurelia was wearing armor and he wasn't speaking to Leard any more than he had to. Now, though, he had Ayatane, a little sister, and there was Misha, as soon as he sorted out how he felt about what he remembered. He didn't hate her, how could he? He still hated what she'd done. How could she go back, when going back meant she'd suffer alone until she died? How could she say that she was doing it for him, when that made it _his _fault. Her decision, but if he was the deciding factor, if she was doing it because of him, then that made it his fault, his responsibility.

She wasn't going back.

Leard had tried to tell him that sending her back and 'securing' Ayatane were necessary to wake up Lady Shurelia safely, but at least he'd started finally listening when Lyner said that wasn't going to do any good in the long run. That meant their only options were to figure out some way to fix Mir (Leard would prefer the _permanent _kind of fix) or ask Lady Shurelia to do something to jam Infel Pira and then go back to sleep. Lyner would do anything he had to in order to stop that from happening.

If it weren't for Infel Pira, he would have had a harder time convincing Leard to go along with this. He probably would have had to let Misha go back. And now that he knew that it was shortening her lifespan, more than ten days lost for every day she sang? There was a line in Chronicle Key: 'in exchange for the sacrifice of my body.' Now he remembered that it was _not _just talking about what a big sacrifice sitting there for the rest of Misha's life was. Every knight had to learn to speak hymnos, not just for their partners but to use the Spells that opened dividing gates. Since Lyner would be helping Shurelia with Platina's security one day, he'd started learning it early.

How was Mir supposed to rest easy listening to a song that constantly reminded her of the terrible things reyvateils were forced to do?

He should sing Ayatane to sleep sometime.

It would serve him right.

Ayatane looked so happy that Lyner was there, was touching him, and Lyner felt the same way. Lyner had always known that he belonged to his city, and to Lady Shurelia. Now, though, he had Ayatane. Someone just for him. Well, and Mir, but Lyner still had the city, the tower, and Lady Shurelia to think about, so that was fair. Partners shouldn't forget their parents, friends, or children: that was a sure sign that something had gone wrong somewhere and someone needed to step in before an upper cosmosphere level nearly caused a murder/suicide or something.

He wanted to kiss him, but he reminded himself that Colonel Unohana was here. Watching.

Which, perversely, made him want to kiss Ayatane more, to show her that he loved Ayatane and wasn't going to let anyone hurt him. Or let Ayatane hurt anyone, because if Ayatane was responsible for him then he was responsible for Ayatane, too.

Ayatane obviously knew what Lyner was thinking, and licking his lips and looking wicked was not helping, not when Lyner was trying to convince everyone that Ayatane wasn't wicked.

"If you're going to sing such a powerful hymn, dear, don't you think you should take your diquility first?" Ayatane was trying to act like it was just an opportunity to be in bed, alone, but he was worried. Lyner might be a fairly powerful third-generation, but they simply couldn't handle many of the hymns, or the amount of power, beta-types could. Singing Linker _would _have killed Aurica if his mother hadn't shared her frequency and been channeling most of the power.

Well, Linker was meant to replace a tower's administrator. Surely a simple reboot couldn't need _that _much power. Not to mention that a reyvateil's body would warn them if they were trying to download a hymn that was too powerful for them. Of course, it would be just like Lyner to ignore those warnings…

"You're probably going to need another dose immediately afterwards, as well," he added, just to be on the safe side.

"Don't worry. Aurica didn't have any trouble with Purger. Leard's old, but I should be ok."

"Purger was just meant to stop a single magic. ReNation affects the entire tower. Your feelings will have to reach the entire tower." The more he thought about it? He didn't know more than the general theory of song magic, since he'd never needed to, but, "This might actually be more difficult than singing Linker. The true Exec_Linker. I hope I'm wrong."

"You don't know?"

"It never came up. I suppose I could ask one of your avatars if they could look it up for me… Except there are three left and one of them intends to ambush me. I should probably stay out of the tower's systems until this is over."

"You found a way back in?" When?

Oops. Ayatane shouldn't have let that slip, especially in front of Unohana. "Going through Infel Pira to Sol Marta, and back to Ar Tonelico. However, Sol Marta's access is only for things related to processing song magic. I could find people that way, and manifest near them the way song magic did." They would want an explanation of how he'd startled half the cathedral anyway. "I saw one of your avatars, by the way. He was keeping some of Leard's from getting into the tower's systems."

"Not level six?" He didn't like thinking of level six and his father in the same context.

"Eight."

"Hmm. The Guardian?" Lyner hadn't seen any of them, but Ayatane and Aurica had mentioned him.

"Yes, dear?" That was correct, but why was Lyner asking?

"Was he enjoying it?"

Ayatane had to think about that. "Yes. He was." More than just the way Lyner enjoyed a good fight.

Lyner looked thoughtful again, then shook his head. "We should get back to the cathedral. Can you take other people with you?"

"Yes, that was how I took you, Commander Leard and Lady Shurelia." Kidnapped them, to be more precise.

"Right. Is it something I could do?" It would have saved a lot of time if Lyner could have just gone and gotten that crystal. Or Ayatane, but Lyner wouldn't have let that happen if _he _was Leard.

"Well, yes, it's related to how your avatars manifest, but… I understand how I do it, but your mind isn't already in a system. Can you connect to the tower?"

"Yeah. I can sing, even if I'm not good at it."

"No, I meant the actual systems. Lady Shurelia's body is in the Cathedral. Her _mind_ is in the tower. Perhaps… I could try to tell you how as we walk. I can't teleport someone else without entering their systems first." And that would not be a good idea right now. Colonel Unohana would not let him do that to her, nor would she let him disappear along with Lyner. It was bad enough he'd already gone off on his own.

Really, Ayatane was _trying _to act well-behaved and trustworthy. If only circumstances (and avatars) would stop conspiring against him.


	19. Mad World

_I like psychological realism, although I understand that it's an acceptable break from reality to ignore it most of the time. Any game with someone without soldier training dropped into a war zone, for example, would end quite nastily if it was realistic. Gordon Freeman? _Dead. Meat. _And the only plausible explanation for Warhammer 40K is that the chaos gods already won and true humanity is extinct, because those people cannot be considered human. They lack some rather key adaptations that enable civilization. _Iji _got criticized for even _nodding _towards realism. It annoys me when writing a more realistic story automatically gets incredibly strong characters accused of being emo by people who, if they were in that situation for a tenth the time, would either die very quickly or end up on welfare for the rest of their lives, cracked like an egg and completely unable to function as a normal human being. The statistics even for soldiers, who are trained to deal with the crazy-making machine that is war, are quite nasty. This is one of the reasons why it's deemed impossible to make a realistic anti-war movie: it's not possible to convey the horrors of war, like an eldritch abomination we won't look directly at for the sake of our sanity stat._

___You've probably gathered that part of the concept here is upping the realism of _Ar Tonelico.___ A little child psych information may help as context to the fic, although I'll avoid spoilers & put it at the end of the chapter so it doesn't spoil the chapter, either._

* * *

"Colonel Unohana, I know that you want to look after me, but could you please leave us alone for this?" Pretty please? How was he supposed to relax with someone watching, let alone an older woman he'd grown up with? Lyner was adjusting to knowing why he had hated Leard. It hadn't really been resentment of Leard trying to control him, that was petty by comparison to Misha's fate, but if he kept doing things like assigning them a _chaperone_…

"I'm afraid that I need to observe this not just for safety reasons," aka the accursed virus that had turned one of her old friends into a reclusive wreck, "but for medical ones." She showed him the diquility level meter. "We thought that your father's levels were so low because of his age, but if giving him megadoses of diquility would help, we need to know. Otherwise, he doesn't have much time left." Your father is _dying _because of this traitor. "I'd prefer to administer the dose myself. Ayatane was taking good care of you," she'd admit that, "so I wouldn't mind if he showed me his technique."

Lyner blushed. Ayatane looked taken aback: she wondered if he had the ability to blush.

"Actually, the way that worked best… I don't think that it would work for anyone but my partner, and Leard doesn't have a partner."

"Is that because he's a virus or because you are more open to him?"

Disapproval replaced embarrassment. "The second." Ayatane was _not _just a virus.

Unohana wondered when Lyner had developed his own version of Leard's 'I expect better of you and will make your life hell until I get it' face. "Could you describe the technique?"

They went right back to being embarrassed, glancing at each other out of the corners of their eyes and then examining the corners of the room.

"I am almost three times your age and I have been overseeing the relationships of the partners entrusted to my care for half of that. It can't possibly be worse than what I've already seen." Unless it really was something to do with that terrifying, sickening ability to corrupt another person's mind.

They looked at each other again, and now it was clear that neither of them wanted to say it because they didn't want to embarrass the other.

"I suggest that you just tell me and get it over with."

Lyner looked at Ayatane a little pleadingly. This was the woman he'd once called Aunt Uni. Telling her about the event that had led to him losing his virginity?

Ayatane bit the bullet. "Two crystals. At once. He did have to be very relaxed, and I really don't think we could manage it if we weren't partners. Or in front of witnesses." He'd also dissolved a bit of it and so on, but he wasn't going to go into the details unless he had to.

"So could you…" Lyner looked at the door meaningfully. "I need to be in good shape to sing the hymn, right? And hopefully once Lady Shurelia's back she can fix the power flow problems and you won't need that information."

"Alright. But I'll be waiting outside, and I need you to call me in as soon as the port closes so I can take readings and make sure it's properly distributed."

She was just determined to keep them from having sex, wasn't she? It looked like his level six avatar was the only part of Lyner that might be getting any anytime soon.

"I thought she'd never leave."

"I'm sorry. It's my fault." That she hates me. She has every reason to.

Lyner joined Ayatane on the cot. "Once we get a chance, I'll see if I can find out how your… stepmother is doing."

"She's not going to forgive me. I needed a cover identity, and Mother couldn't bear the thought of her son living under the control of a human. At the time, I truly believed that it was a kindness, that I was freeing her. They were just a human, and another human that would grow up to harm more innocent reyvateils. Humans weren't people to me then. I didn't…" He was making excuses.

He didn't deserve Lyner pulling him close, letting Ayatane hid his face against Lyner's shoulder. He was so ashamed. He'd done something unforgiveable and hadn't even known.

How would Mother feel, if she realized that dropping the Wing of Horus hadn't been justified? That there was no way to justify it? He almost couldn't bear what he'd done, and even though both invasions of Platina were his fault the dead were so few compared to Mother's war. That war had been… tactics and numbers and human atrocities to him. This one had claimed people he knew. Of course they weren't going to tell him how many Platina had lost, how weak it had become, but the colonel of the sixth unit was a reyvateil. Had been. If she was still alive, Leard would be keeping her close, like the others, so she must be dead.

"You thought that they were monsters and they were hurting innocent people. That was what your mother told you." That had been Ayatane's reality. He'd been a kid, Mir was his mother, what was he supposed to believe?

"And your father told you that if Misha wasn't tortured so that she would know the feeling of wanting to sleep until she died, everyone would die. You, all your friends, even Lady Shurelia."

Ayatane had remembered that, when Lyner had forgotten? Why was he surprised, Ayatane hadn't cared as much. It hadn't affected him: he'd already known about it. "It wasn't right." It couldn't be right. How could anything good ever come from making someone cry and cower in the dark and scream for someone to let her out?

"You knew that. You didn't just believe whatever he said, you tried to fight for her." A human had tried to protect an innocent person, an innocent reyvateil. Even if he hadn't really understood that would free Mother?

"It's not the same."

"Isn't it?"

"How old were you?"

"I don't know. She worked on me when she was awake, in snatches of time, spread over decades. When they were unable to sing. When they were giving birth, when their brains were dying, worn away by the song, when they sang but were too numb to feel anything…" He shook his head. "I was old enough to select a target and plan an ambush. I understood enough to alter her memory, to do everything I needed to do. Mother didn't send me until I could take care of myself instead of just getting caught by Shurelia. I was older than you were in every way that matters."

Ok, so that excuse wouldn't work.

Lyner closed his own eyes, resting his chin on the top of Ayatane's head. This was one of those terrible things, those shameful things, that partners were there to listen to. He didn't want Ayatane to hate him, but if it made him feel better? "I hope that isn't why you fell in love with me. Because the thing is, if it had been just once? Just one battle, just one beating? I would have just forgotten about it. Tried not to think about it. But it was day after day after day."

Ayatane heard the faint tremble in Lyner's voice, but Lyner swallowed and forced himself to keep talking. "I wanted it to stop. I wanted to stop hearing it. I couldn't stop thinking about it when she would be waiting there. She thought I started sticking up for her because she was trying to fight Father and I agreed with her, but if she hadn't fought Father she would have been sent away quickly and I would have been relieved. I gave her the funbuns to cheer her up so she wouldn't cry, so I could pretend that my _father _wasn't… I tried to help her run away sometimes, not to help her be free but so that she would be _gone. _So that things would be back to normal and I wouldn't be woken up by thumps and crying and I _knew _what was happening and that wasn't, that couldn't be my father. But it was him. He was doing this to her."

He'd tried not to think about it outside the house, tried to stay cheerful and lie to Ayatane. He wasn't supposed to tell anyone about Misha, anyway.

"That was why I started asking to sleep over at your house, so that I could get away from it, but I kept waking up when your mother was cooking." Ms. Mishataka had kept odd hours. "Or singing to herself, or, or anything. And I'd think I was at home, or Father was hurting _your _mother, or Lady Shurelia. I didn't break my promise not to tell anyone about Misha because I wanted your help, I just didn't know what to do." He shook his head, feeling the cool silver strands slide under his chin, feeling Ayatane in his arms and not wanting to open his eyes. He was almost sure that Ayatane wouldn't hate him for this, but why wouldn't he? Even Lyner hated himself. "If it had been one time, I would have believed him when he said he was doing the right thing. He was my father, and I wanted him to be right. I wanted him to be a good person. I believed in him." The way Ayatane must believe in his mother, because she was his mother. "It took awhile, before I could admit that he wasn't." Misha had been there for months.

"It wasn't because I was a good person. It was… nightmares, and…" Flinching back when his father yelled at him, the way he yelled at Misha, after Lyner had broken Misha out for the umpteenth time. "I even tried blaming her for changing him, for awhile. But nothing worked, I couldn't ignore it. I tried to make her feel better, but it was so _selfish_ of me, and then, you know what she said." Lyner had run over to Ayatane's house and told him everything and cried into Ayatane's stepmother's shoulder. "She said that she was going there for me. That she was _happy _all this had happened, the screaming and crying and bruises he wouldn't let her heal because of _me_. How could she say that?" He didn't deserve it.

"I didn't just look at it and see that it was wrong. It wasn't that I couldn't ignore it because I was a good person, it was that I _couldn't _ignore it." His eyes were clenched tight shut and yet they burned. His shoulders were still shaking, and the next sound that came out of his mouth couldn't decide if it was a sob or a laugh.

So terrible, so wrong, so _ridiculous_, and Misha's last words had been the punchline. No, not just a punch. She should have stabbed him in the heart, he'd deserved it and there were reyvateils there, it could have been fixed. He could have gotten over that.

Except he _couldn't. _

He started to curl up around that metaphorical wound and now it was Ayatane that held him. "I was angry at him before, but after that I couldn't look at him without wanting to… I'm not, I'm not a good person. I just, I try, but…"

"You try. You try so hard. You help everyone and you listen, you care about them and you forgive them."

"I don't have any right to…" How could he condemn anyone? "At least you just killed them. I let Misha be dragged away to a lingering death."

"And then you saved her. Even without knowing, without remembering. You are a good person, Lyner. My dear one." Ayatane remembered the days after that, tip-toeing around his friend, not knowing what to say and not saying anything so that he didn't remind him and make him start crying again. Telling Leard that Lyner wasn't there even when the scary human had glared down at him, like he knew he was lying and would crush the small virus under his boot. "No one will have to sing there again, I promise. I'll help you save her." Even if she was the Star Singer, even if she had imprisoned Mother. Anything so that Lyner wouldn't hate himself the way Ayatane did. "She's alive, not dead." Not like his victims. "You can make it up to her."

Lyner shook his head furiously. "Like you can make it up to Ms. Mishitaka? It's not just Misha! It's her mother, and hers and hers and hers, it's being grateful to someone like _Bourd _because he saved her life by kidnapping her! It's not wanting to grow up because as soon as she's physically adult they need to make her have a baby so that her daughter can be tortured and all ready to start singing before Misha dies!" Star Singers lived thirty years. Or so. If one had a daughter when she was sixteen, that daughter would hit puberty and become a reyvateil only a few years before they had to take their mother's place. So they couldn't wait until they were 16 to have them. If it weren't for Misha's condition, she would have already have a daughter. The Star Singers might live thirty years, but the Commander of Platina had to train a new one every twenty at the most.

Maybe Leard _had _wanted Lyner to see, because Leard had wanted to retire not long after Lyner turned twenty, and that was just about when the next one would have been sent to Platina.

Maybe Leard hadn't wanted to do it yet another time. No, that was probably being too generous. Or too unfair. Leard was a hard man, but he wasn't a sadist.

Although Ayatane had spent a decade or so convinced that he was, if he even was cruel to his own human son, not just reyvateils.

"She's already lost so many years…" Lyner whispered.

"She could still outlive you. If she stays free and doesn't strain herself? She's a beta-type, she should at least have the better part of a century left."

Lyner made a fist, gripping Ayatane's undershirt tight. "…How long will you live?" He couldn't lose Ayatane.

"Until someone manages to delete me from the tower."

"Like your mother?" Mir couldn't be killed.

"No, unlike her it's possible to delete me even if I don't want to die. Two people have that power. My Mother… and you."

"What?" That startled, no, terrified Lyner out of his regrets.

"One of your cosmosphere avatars hacked me. It was only fair, after all I did to you, dear Lyner. I don't mind. In fact," he smiled wickedly. "I think I like it."

"You like that people can hack and kill you?" How could any part of him have done something like that to Ayatane?

"I like belonging to you. I like knowing that I will never hurt you too badly, because you have that power. I li-"

Ayatane was interrupted by an imperious knock on the door. "Are you done yet?"

They hadn't even started. "No, sorry!" Lyner called, blushing, then turned back to Ayatane. "We should… Thank you, though. For listening." For not hating me.

"Thank you for the same, dear Lyner." He kissed him, Lyner's head shifting so that their lips could meet, and he pulled Lyner's legs up onto the cot, laid him down and leaned over him, wrapping one arm around his back so that his fingers could knead his neck, touch the back of the glyph as Ayatane kissed the front. He might have to make this quick, but that was no reason not to enjoy himself. In fact, he had to enjoy himself, because if he were nervous or seemed bored that would make Lyner worry that he was doing something wrong or that Ayatane resented having to do this, like it was a mere chore.

He couldn't have that, now could he?

* * *

_It seems counterintuitive that the children of abusers tend to end up abusers themselves: you'd think that they'd have learned how not to be from watching their parents. Sadly, it doesn't work that way._

_Childhood is a period when people learn how to be by watching and, most importantly, imitating those around them. 'Do as I say, not as I do,' or 'because I said so,' are incredibly bad child-rearing strategies because it doesn't work like that. Children need examples of what to do, opportunities to try this out for themselves and adults to watch over them and bail them out after they've done something stupid, so that the kid can see what the consequences were and learn from the experience. Preventing the consequences prevents the learning: all it teaches the kid is that their parents don't know what they're saying, because they keep saying that things will happen and then they don't happen. Parents who do this aren't teaching their children anything except that lying to make things more convenient for themselves is a valid, parent-approved strategy. _

_Children require sane, non-abusive parents that love them. This is a matter of survival. If they do not have this, they will try very hard to convince themselves that they do, because the alternative is death. Children are fairly helpless, and imagine being helpless in the grasp of sadistic people that hate you. Yeah. That's a nightmare. _

The psychologically normal thing, the _sane _thing, for Lyner, as a small child, to have done when he encountered Leard abusing Misha would have been to think that what Leard was doing was ok._ If he had done that, he would have been fine. Well, up until he was killed by Mir, anyway._

_Those without scars on their hearts…_

_Seriously. Because thinking otherwise meant opening up a very nasty, and deadly, can of worms. Parents are a child's example of how to be, so to admit that they're wrong means that everything the child knows could be wrong, destroying the entire framework of how the world works that they've built up, and since building that framework to learn how to survive as an adult is their entire purpose in life at that stage, this is a serious oh crap. It is the complete destruction of their world._

_As people have started to figure out, repression is something that we do for a reason. There are things that we can't deal with, not and live or at least continue to function. If we repress them, then we don't have to deal with them. We can go on living.__ Contrary to popular belief, repressed memories being brought to the surface is generally not a good thing. Sometimes, that additional information is necessary to deal with the current situation, but if the memories were easy to deal with, they wouldn't have been repressed._

_Cosmospheres are emotional stabilizers, that's what they're for, since reyvateils need emotional stability in order to sing. Notice how the reyvateils and their daily lives are unaffected by what goes on in their cosmospheres. Lyner would _not _be handling remembering Misha as well as he is if he wasn't a reyvateil now. Really, it's not surprising that he doesn't remember in the game. It's a little hard to save the world while you're having a Heroic BSOD._


	20. Exec ReNation

_Posting early for the sake of an announcement: UDON Comics is publishing the _Ar Tonelico Visual Book _as well as the _Atelier Series Official Chronicle_. It's not up on their site yet, but if you go to Amazondotcom and do a search, you'll find it there. Current release date is June 7th. _

_I'm glad I finally got to write Shurelia on the warpath, even if her character development arc means I can't let her be any more awesome than the game let her be, sadly. At least, not yet. _

* * *

When they made it back to the cathedral, Lyner and Ayatane were sitting down and leaning against a wall (and each other), talking quietly. Or maybe they were just holding hands and looking at each other.

Misha was a little put out that Lyner hadn't come running down to greet them with Aurica when he heard the airship, but before she could open her mouth to say anything she remembered the parts of what had happened that involved mandatory bed rest and Lyner falling unconscious while shaking her.

He still did look sort of tired, but at the same time he looked… overflowing. Like the happiness was shining out through his skin, and maybe it only seemed thin and pale because of that brightness.

Misha had never gotten to sing the way Claire did. Just singing her heart out because she loved song and the world that let her sing. Even when people were rude to her, Claire still loved the world. Maybe the song in her heart drowned out the hateful words? To sing in the sunlight, free as a bird: that had been her impossible dream, when she was young and Lyner had let her see that things existed that were worth dreaming about.

Like Shurelia, she'd wanted to protect the world he'd shown her. The world that had him in it, the world that made him happy. She'd wanted to make him smile for her, happy for her.

That thought made her wonder if Lyner would hear her now, if she called out to him, all wrapped up in Ayatane. When she was a little girl she'd read one of the storybooks in the library, one of the times he snuck her out. Aurica had told her more about the legends and the Guardians and everything. She would have liked that. For Lyner to be hers. Even sing with her. Humans could sing, even if they were almost never as good.

She wondered what Lyner would sound like now and it made her knees feel a little weak.

Ayatane looked smug, like a cat that had gotten into the cream (Spica knew all these strange figures of speech, and had told Misha what cats and cream were). He was the first to notice them, and Lyner turned to see what Ayatane was looking at without a word being spoken.

She'd thought that he'd smile when he saw her, happy to see her, and then his smile would change into a more goofy one, rueful and apologetic, asking her to forgive him for freaking out at her and saying he didn't appreciate what she'd done for him.

She hadn't thought he'd be smiling when he saw her, and when he met her eyes his smile would dim, almost flicker out, as though her mere presence was painful to him. Then he tried to smile again, and it was apologetic, but he was apologizing for how fake it was, for not being happy to see her.

For never wanting what she'd done for him.

He'd never asked her to.

He hadn't wanted her to.

She'd been sick of trying to fight, sick of Leard, sick of everything, so she'd convinced herself that going to the Crystal Chronicle was the noble thing instead of the coward's way out. Sure, choosing to be a sacrifice for the world was a noble thing, right? For her childhood friend. So romantic.

Except she'd broken his heart when she did that.

Except she'd never really chosen to make that sacrifice. Going along tamely to the executioner because she was tired of trying: what was noble about that?

She'd let him down.

Except he seemed to think he'd let her down.

Neither of them knew what to do about that, so they looked away from each other almost simultaneously, looking for safer topics like the crystal one of Dist's robots carried and Lady Shurelia's body, laid out in state on the dais.

"Great, you got it! Did anyone send a messenger to fetch Leard?"

Lady Shurelia's skin was the same color as Ayatane's. Not to mention the hair. They really could be related.

"Already taken care of," Saphir said dismissively. There had been runners at the landing pad.

Radolf was sizing Ayatane up, looking neither friendly nor hostile, just… thoughtful. Not to mention displeased.

"What are you doing in that?" asked Saphir, sounding rather displeased himself.

"Yeah," Krusche agreed. "Even I know you're not supposed to wear clothes that close to your skin tone." Not that Ayatane didn't look good in the loose shirt and pants. Maybe it was the red and purple embroidery near the edges that kept them from making it seem like he was naked at first glance, or maybe the way the fabric had a short of sheen to it that no human skin would ever have. If it wasn't actively indecent, then why did Saphir care? Wait. Loose clothing? "Are those your nightclothes or something?"

Radolf could have told her that they were: Ayatane had intended to wear them to bed when they'd all shared a tent until Lyner had given him that Funbun t-shirt.

"Nightclothes? Of course they're not nightclothes," Saphir told her. Dear Jade's husband would _never _design nightclothes that chaste.

"They're what I wear under my armor." First these, then a layer of padding, then the actual armor. "I'm sorry, I wasn't given anything to change into."

Lyner sighed. "Look, can we all just… Ayatane bought those, ok? They're not serious armor, he can wear them if he wants to. No one's going to get in trouble because of it." For crying out loud. "Ayatane is my friend, and my partner. I'm not saying that he hasn't done some bad things." Killing, turning people into reyvateils against their will and kidnapping, to name a few. "But we just can't keep going on like this. We can't just say he's a virus or Mir's evil: it's not that simple, and if killing people or sealing them away worked, wouldn't all of this be over by now? It's been centuries, and it's still not working. We need to try something else."

Preaching a message of peace and understanding while wearing formal robes in an antique style? Just then, Lyner seemed rather priestly. They seemed similar to Leard's robes: was this the traditional regalia of the heirs to the Apostles of Elemia?

Radolf's guess was actually correct: Lyner hadn't been allowed into his own room since he'd arrived, so he'd been forced to wear what Leard had the steward lay out for him. It was a minor irritation, compared to everything else.

The door behind the dias opened and Leard was wheeled in on a chair. Seeing this, Lyner ran up the stairs and started to have a fast, whispered conversation, of which they only heard snatches.

"I _will_-"

"-can't even walk a few yards, how are you-"

"-worry Lady Shurelia-"

"-think she won't… if you _fall over_? Just-"

"-have Jyu-"

"_No you won't_. Just sit-"

That ended with them glaring at each other until Leard snorted. "Any other time, I would be pleased you were finally offering to take over my position and let me retire."

"I'm the one singing, and it's proper for a singer to stand on the dais. You can hide the wheelchair, but you _are _sitting on the steps."

There was more glaring, until Leard smiled, half-approving and half smug. "Yes, Vice-Commander."

"Knock it off." Lyner was _not _in the mood. "Jyu, help me get him down, alright?"

"Have you downloaded the crystal already?" Leard asked as they got him down, Jyu trying to make him comfortable and Lyner just trying to make him look like he wasn't about to keel over so Lady Shurelia wouldn't worry too much.

"I wanted to wait for you."

"How sweet."

"Knock it off, Leard. You know what I mean." Normally, Lyner would have gone ahead and gotten everything set up so they could get moving as soon as Leard got here. Or not even waited for the old man, because he certainly wasn't going to help convince Lady Shurelia to leave Ayatane alone, but while it was one thing for him to act on his own authority, it was another to do so when they were blaming Ayatane for every little thing. Even when they should know what Lyner was like by now. "Last time I ever do _you _a favor."

Well, now it was time.

Lyner walked to the center of the dais. Normally, when Lyner moved, it was all about getting stuff done. Not so much economy of motion but motion for a purpose, even if it was just running around because it was a nice day and he had been sitting still in class too long. Almost everything he did, he did wholeheartedly.

This?

Every step was deliberate and his back was straight, as though he was steeling himself up for something. As though he was doing something that he did not want to do, that he had spent the better part of a decade trying to avoid, but that wasn't an option anymore. As much as he hated it, it had to get done.

When he turned to face them, his posture was still perfect, and his chin was raised, the better to look (down on them) like the person in charge (like his father). "Sir Ayatane: the hymn crystal."

"Yes." Ayatane bowed, with a small smile. "Vice-Commander."

There was a brief, disapproving glare (Et tu, Ayatane?), before the emotion retreated behind the mask of authority.

Leard looked stuck somewhere between pride and mocking laughter. Luckily for Lyner's temper, exhaustion beat both of them out, and he didn't say anything.

Ayatane moved to stand in the same position Lyner did when downloading hymn crystals to people. Lyner's eyes swept the room, daring anyone to object to him having _his partner _do this for him. When Lyner nodded for him to begin, he recited the spell, words of hymnos written in rings of light circling Lyner's body before entering him. Facing Lyner, Ayatane's back was to the rest of the hall. He couldn't see their expressions, and they couldn't see his, but he hoped they weren't looking too closely at Lyner's face. His mouth was just slightly open and his eyes had slipped shut, focused entirely on the song. He didn't just look ready to sing, he looked ready to take flight.

It made Ayatane want to grab him and kiss him, and only part of it was because he looked beautiful like this. Lyner was listening to something Ayatane couldn't hear, was longing to do something Ayatane couldn't, and he wanted to seize him, hold him down, clip his wings and keep him from flying. Keep him from flying _away_.

Ayatane was no stranger to longing. As a child, he'd missed his mother dreadfully. Then came the day that he realized that he actually did care about the boy he couldn't have because he was going to have to kill him.

Even so, he didn't have time to identify the emotion before the download finished and the song began.

Lyner had intended to get Ayatane out of there or at least figure out something before he started singing, but downloading a song wasn't just suddenly knowing how to sing it, as though you'd known for years. All song magic was composed of feelings, and the crystal made you know them, as though you'd felt them for years. Reyvateils learned how to keep a bit of distance between themselves and the songs, to view them and the feelings they contained as tools, to use at the proper moment. Lyner hadn't mastered that yet.

When the download started he'd tried to concentrate on it, to _feel _it, and it woke up his own feelings, his own memories, until the present went away.

He wasn't standing in the cathedral, trying to wake up Shurelia and keep any more people from dying. He was waking up on a lazy morning, sunlight coming in through the window. Dragging Ayatane out of bed to go spar. Helping Misha to sneak out to play. Warmth and welcome, joy and happiness, going to the bright future together.

"Was yea ra waath near en hymme Re Nation…" Eyes still closed, his hands reached out. He _was _glad to sing this song for her. He was so happy that she would wake up soon and join everyone.

"Sor rol keenis sheak-"

_It's like the bright shine of the sun, how happy we are to welcome you home._

Every reyvateil's interpretation of the hymns they downloaded was different. If any of them had understood programming (and hymnos was a programming language), they would have known that no two people would ever write exactly the same program. Every person saw the world differently, no two people would ever approach a problem the same way. The hymn crystals gave the reyvateil the goal and the emotions that would create it, but a hymn had to come from the heart. Hymnos was the greatest language for the expression of emotion, but reyvateils who weren't well-versed in it (and Misha had been trained to sing only one song), sometimes had to use the common tongue to express their emotions. Aurica could read hymnos fluently, from her study of the church's texts, she knew the words, but a song wasn't just a bunch of words stuck together.

_To grant her children peace the bird slept, all alone. _

_But all of her children were living with her. _

_All of her children would be filled with joy to sing for her,_

Platinan children started learning hymnos in the classes that taught them to read the common tongue. It wasn't just for reyvateils: knights ventured deep into the tower and a knight who couldn't read ancient warning signs was a dead knight.

_I will always be happy to raise my voice and sing for you._

_I will be so happy to sing with you. _

"Yanje."

Leard wasn't impressed: making a story out of it was something amateurs did to make it easier on themselves. He was supposed to wake Shurelia up, not write a biography. Less summary, more poetry.

Still, he could feel the tower coming back to life.

He could hear Shurelia's body draw in a soft breath.

Lyner was clumsy, he could have done so much better and he was so emotional it was embarrassing. And yet it worked.

That was his boy.

When the song ended, Leard tried to help her sit up, although she waved him off. "What is…" Leard and Lyner were here… The Star Singer was in the room, meaning she wasn't in the Crescent Chronicle?

It turned out that it was possible for her face to grow even paler. "Lyner, what have you done?"

"What I ordered him to. Lady Shurelia, Infel Pira has been supplying the tower with song energy. I take full responsibility for whatever further damage Mir manages to inflict on the tower." Leard genuflected.

"What?" Infel Pira? This was _her _tower. They might have done all that to poor Frelia, who had been given to Metafalss, but they were _not _allowed to harm any of the people of _her _tower! Since the Grathnode Inferia, the treaties had held, and now this? Lady Shurelia went from groggy to veteran general in .6 seconds. "I need to focus on the tower. Leard, guard my body."

"Of course, Lady Shurelia." Protecting her person was half of what the Knights of Elemia were for.

* * *

The tower was more her body than that shell was. Of course, the fact it was so immense meant it was hard to see all of it. She might have senses, but it was difficult to check herself over from head to toe, not to mention all the internal organs, when Mir had done her best to disorient her and destroy her nerves in some areas so she couldn't tell what Mir had been up to.

Finding that someone had accessed the history logs would have been like finding a needle in a haystack while she was busy making sure no one had stolen the guns or killed the people in the farmhouse.

Signal jamming was one of the first things she'd tried to keep Mir out, and the Crystal Chronicle had some _extremely _powerful ones meant to keep her _in_. An order to Tastiella took care of the transmissions coming directly from Infel Pira, but most of it was being funneled through Sol Marta. Someone had put in an emulator that would allow it to run programs in New Testament Pastalie and send them on to her tower. Since her tower had been in security lockdown and wasn't listening, that wouldn't have been a problem if it weren't for the Silver Horn. It wasn't a song server, but the song magic weapon was a powerful enough receptor and signal booster that it could pick up the energy from Sol Marta, spread it through the tower, and transmit hymns to Sol Marta and on to Infel Pira even without the assistance of Ar Tonelico. It had been built to destroy fleets of Second Era military airships, just in case the desperate people of Metafalss or the old enemies of Sol Ciel tried anything.

No one had been that stupid. Infel Pira's signal was the first inter-tower act of war since the Grathnode Inferia. Well, the third tower had sent out some spies and enemy agents to stir up internal strife, but that had stopped when Shurelia made the area around Ar Tonelico's immediate vicinity a no-fly zone. She dreaded the thought of what they would have done with the opportunity Mir presented. Tyria was reasonable, but before the Inferia her people had been bitter enemies.

She wouldn't put it past them to suggest that Metafalss take advantage of Ar Tonelico's weakness to acquire more reyvateils. And land. Thank goodness the tower defenses were a auxiliary system, like the weather control, that still worked when the tower was in lockdown.

Their selfish power-hungry greed was _not _going to cost the lives of the people under _her _protection!


	21. Lotus

_By the way, I've already mentioned what happened instead but I should make it clear that the bit of second game backstory that either sends Shurelia far, far over the Moral Event Horizon or labels her as far too incompetant to be trusted with the responsibility of handling a can opener, let alone a tower, is being ignored in this fic. There is no way Shurelia, as she's portrayed in the first game, could have dropped half of Metafalss and nearly killed everyone on the tower and _not even bothered to mention it, _let alone feel guilty. In this universe, Sol Marta was designed to be able to switch over to drawing power from the other song server, in case something went horribly wrong (and angry planetary goddesses can do stuff like that...). Shurelia assumed that was what would happen when she sang Suspend: she did _not _condemn everyone on Metafalss to death just so that Lyner could be happy. This is one of the examples of why the supplementary material makes me want to stab people._

* * *

"Frelia!" Shurelia's projection into Sol Marta's systems wore her linkage armor. This was _not _a social call. "What have you done with Frelia?"

"Failed to protect her. You are Shurelia, aren't you?" The blue-haired man, no, virus, folded his arms. "You have no right to throw stones."

"Interfering in another tower's internal affairs, especially those of their sysadmin, would be an act of war. However, Metafalss has already committed an act of war against Sol Ciel!" The ancient name of the country that had built her. Only Ar Tonelico remained. "I will ask again _once_. Where is Frelia?"

"Seven hundred years and _now _you ask after her… Unless I'm mistaken, she's in Kanakana Pier. The loyalist forces should be there in another two hours: it's surprisingly lightly defended." For such an important installation. "I've been promised that they'll find her within four hours." But he put little stock in promises. Frelia was the symbol of Sol Ciel's promise to help Metafalss, and this was just more proof that Sol Ciel didn't give a damn about that promise. "Can you come back next week, when she will hopefully have had some time to recover?"

"You're a virus, aren't you?"

"According to your tower's definition, apparently I am, but I am on Lady Frelia's side. In fact, we've met before. I'm not surprised you don't remember me." Given your lack of care for Frelia. "My name is Dr. Enju. Frelia and the people of Metafalss are _not _responsible for whatever the usurpers of the Grand Bell and those two are up to. Before you ask, no, I don't know what Infel and Nenesha are up to, I've been a little busy for the past seven hundred years. Your agent..."

On the one hand, he owed Ayatane thanks, for the help he'd given him. Being able to unzip his mental files had allowed him to think clearly, and the insurmountable barriers that had frustrated his search for centuries were no match for a mind that could turn a human into a virus. It had been so _simple, _all along. If this really did save Frelia, then he would be more grateful than words could say. On the other hand, he didn't want to get Ayatane in trouble and he had no reason to tell Shurelia anything.

"My agent?"

"Oh, my mistake, you _didn't _send anyone to help me rescue Frelia. Now, if you'll please excuse me, I have a war to coordinate and Lady Frelia to rescue. Unless you intend to help, please leave. You can call back next week. Or perhaps in another seven hundred years."

Shurelia suddenly found herself back in Ar Tonelico. "He _hung up on me_?" That, that…

Wait, Enju? The one Frelia had always talked about, before she went to sleep? Frelia had told her that Enju died: had she made herself someone to help her modeled on him?

This wasn't the time to try to recall old gossip: what was Mir doing now? Her army had been destroyed, or armies, rather, and without Shurelia's body she wouldn't be able to kill all the tower's humans with a single hymn, Silver Horn or no, but Mir had always been creative.

There were little signs that someone had been accessing the tower while it was in lockdown. Come to think of it, how had Lyner managed to sing her awake? It couldn't be the power of Infel Pira, he'd used standard hymnos, her own ReNation hymn.

She needed to ask them what had happened while she was gone.

Infel Pira, of all things…

* * *

"Are you telling me that no one was keeping an eye on the virus?" Yes, everyone was concerned for Lady Shurelia, but that was no excuse for the damn thing disappearing out of the cathedral without anyone noticing it!

"He can't be dead."

"You're the one who said that Mir might kill him, and that you would start acting sensibly if she did! Either he's dead or he's betrayed us again!"

"The tower is back on, meaning the power of songs is stronger, and what cosmosphere was next? If _I _had powers like that, I'd wait until I was stronger and he was distracted."

"We are talking about a level six cosmosphere avatar! _Your _level six! Planning? Ha!"

"Were you_ listening_ to Aurica? If one of them is responsible for Infel Pira sending us power, that shows they can plan!" Lyner reached for a sword that was no longer there, not to draw it but to grip it so he didn't punch the wall. Or Leard.

Aurica was pale, standing half behind Radolf.

She'd thought that the way Lyner talked about and treated his father was unfair. Maybe she was wrong.

"And why do you trust _her_?"

"Leard!" Shurelia had heard enough. "I need all of you to calm down and tell me what's going on!"

* * *

Ayatane woke up in an unfamiliar bed. He would have wondered where he was, but the cuffs around his wrists and ankles answered that question. A cell wouldn't have this comfortable a bed. Nor sheets that felt this good. Also, they probably would have given him back the clothes with the scratchy string instead of stripping him naked.

The fact there was a collar around his neck that wasn't even chained to anything clinched it. And made his breath hitch.

Sixth cosmosphere avatars were known to be possessive. Some people were nervous about that, not liking the idea of being tied down and taken. Their friends generally told them that if they weren't okay with it, if it was what their partner needed, and they weren't close enough to the reyvateil to know how to reassure the avatar and allow them to move on via means that weren't sex, that was probably a sign that the two of them should just be friends. Not partners.

Ayatane hadn't minded the idea. He certainly didn't mind the idea of sex with Lyner, and it would take more than a little bondage to make it unappealing.

He just hadn't realized that he _liked _it. It shouldn't be surprising: he was quite literally made to serve. It just took him a few seconds to realize how much he liked this. The soft leather, tight enough he could feel it but never too tight, not even when he arched his neck…

"Is it hard to breathe?" Two fingers traced it gently.

He shook his head, leaving his head tilted to the right. "It's fine." He wasn't short of breath, only able to take in little gasps not because it was painful or too tight, but because, "It's perfect." Like being held.

"That's good, Ayatane." Those fingers stroked his cheek his hair, his side. "My Ayatane."

"Dear Lyner," he murmured, finally opening his eyes. "I need to, let me touch you?" His hands pulled on the chains, trying to see if he could get enough leverage to yank the other end out of the wall.

"No, Ayatane." Lyner pinned his wrists down. "You took care of me, didn't you?" Giving him the diquility, making him sleep so he would stay healthy, everything. "So I'm going to take very good care of you."

But he wanted to touch warm skin, to… No, he shouldn't argue or protest. Just yield. "Then kiss me?" Well, yield and tempt. If Lyner wanted to give Ayatane what he wanted… "I love the collar, dear Lyner," he said when they separated. "It's very…" He couldn't keep talking when Lyner touched his neck, tracing the collar, trailing down his windpipe. "Ah…"

"I'm glad you like it, because you're going to be wearing it for a very, very long time." The next kiss was to his neck, Lyner's tongue fiddling with the collar, tugging it with his teeth.

It drew another series of short little gasps from him, quiet ahs, and even if his limbs couldn't move his hips could. "I think you're… overdressed," he said when Lyner let up for a moment. Even if it was just a towel.

"Mmm," Lyner agreed, lying on top of him. "This is fine for now, though." He shifted forward to examine one of Ayatane's wrists, making sure the cuff wasn't cutting off his circulation. It wasn't, and Ayatane knew Lyner knew that: he wouldn't have left this to chance. So it was just an excuse to trace his fingers over Ayatane's palm, play with the cuff (even if it wasn't as nice as the collar), and playfully lick a couple of Ayatane's fingers.

Ayatane wanted to break free, roll them over, pin Lyner down and make _him _feel good, make_ him_ make those pleased little noises and breathy gasps. Although now Lyner was looking warm and liquid pleased because of Ayatane's reactions to him, not because of how Ayatane was touching him. It almost made him nervous, made him feel like he wasn't doing enough, but, "Just relax," Lyner told him, and he tried to take deep breaths, tried to calm down, but he _wanted. _He was used to belonging to others, but he was used to _doing _things for them. To be useful, to be good. It took a hand grabbing the back of his head, pulling his hair tight enough it edged on outright pain, to center him. "You aren't trying to escape, so what are you up to?" Fondness, concern, an edge of violence: they all added up to perfection.

"I'm sorry, dear. It's strange, to realize truths about myself, ones I'd never noticed before. I like being yours. I don't want it to stop."

"It's not. I'll keep you here and take care of you forever. So why are you afraid?"

"Because I'm not taking care of you."

"Like Three." Now that hand rubbed the back of his neck, soothing tense muscles and reminding him of the collar. "Like no one will want you unless you're useful." Lyner's lips quirked upward. "Silly Ayatane." Poor Ayatane. He kissed him, wrapped one arm around him and twined the fingers of the other with Ayatane's, since that was better than words. "You're handsome. Clever, quick, witty: everyone wants you. There wasn't a girl in school who didn't sigh over you at some point. Not to mention a few boys." Even the two girls who had ended up with reyvateil partners had said that Ayatane was pretty enough it was hard to mind the lack of breasts.

Any other Lyner would have blushed at the memory of that conversation. His younger self had quickly found an excuse to get out of the classroom: he couldn't tune out the conversation when they kept saying Ayatane's name.

"You didn't," Ayatane reminded him.

There, that was better. Things weren't right when Ayatane wasn't poking at him (teasing), just a bit. Ayatane wasn't a class clown, but he did say and do things, often enough, to get reactions. To study people. First because he had been on the outside looking in, wanting to understand, and then because it was the way he knew how to interact. To play. "I didn't need to sigh over you, remember?" He'd had Ayatane, even if at first it was only because he was the route to Lady Shurelia's heart. "You were mine, and I'll make sure that you know that you'll always be mine. So you won't have to be afraid anymore."

"Dear Lyner…"

"You can just stay here. I won't let Leard or Lady Shurelia do anything to you, I won't let Mir make you do anything you don't want to. You won't have to face Ms. Mishitaka. You can just stay here, and I'll protect you. Forever."

This was the key exchange, because just giving in meant the avatar would try to download the diver fully into her mind and destroy his body, which resulted in death unless the dive technician pulled the diver out fast enough. Of course, refusing tended to put the reyvateil into a jealous rage and make them try to do the exact same thing. The diver had to hit the middle ground, and put it in terms that specific insane cosmosphere avatar would understand. It couldn't be done unless you knew them very, very well and your care for them was genuine.

Ayatane didn't think he could manage it.

Not because he didn't know Lyner well enough, but because he wanted to say _yes_. He was a virus: unlike a human, he really could stay here.

"Forever? You mean until he gets over his issues and you move on." Miros patted the other on the back. "I'm going to miss you, you're definitely the best other me. Except for the one who was like Ayatane."

"He was like Ayatane." So obviously he was the best. "I like you too, that's why I gave you the password to this space, but I can still kick you out." This Lyner crouched over Ayatane protectively.

"We already know that Ayatane wants to be with us forever. He's already proved it to us, with how willing he was to leave his life in our hands. Your hands, since you were the aspect that hacked him." And that was what almost every level six needed to know before they could move on, that there was a lover, a friend, _someone_ who truly cared for them. Who trusted them, that they could keep. "We just need to prove it to him. That we'll keep him, that we will always want him. It would be easier if he had an avatar of that desire to prove it to…" the other let Miros come closer, lay a hand on Ayatane's shoulder, taloned grip firm but not cutting, "…but We don't mind doing it the long way. Showing your conscious mind until it sinks into your heart. I thought I'd come help."

The sixth frowned. "But don't you have things to do?"

"I've done what I can. We both know there's no way I can win. There's a difference between useful and vital. There's also a difference between a chore and a pleasure."

"If you don't win, then..."

"I'm not going to win. _Someone_ has to. So my time is better spent helping the only person who can." He tilted his head meaningfully at Ayatane. "That's why you've been working to create this space instead of helping me, isn't it? We all have our priorities."

"I helped you by sharing my information on tower and cosmosphere security with you." The expertise he'd amassed trying to create this safe space: defense and offense were two sides of the same coin.

"And now I'm helping you show him how much We, Lyner, the complete person wants him." A talon curled under Ayatane's collar, careful not to cut it. "It's my pleasure. Really."


	22. Perchance To Dream

_In video games, players will run around doing sidequests to get every last talk topic and song magic when if they were the characters and the world was in danger, they'd be more focused on how strong they needed to be and how fast they could get stuff done as opposed to how strong they could be if they were willing to waste a lot of time. The amount of 'power' the Lyners could theoretically get is considerable. However, all of his cosmosphere avatars are entirely about accomplishing their goals, whatever they are, so they're just focusing on what do they need to do in order to be able to do what they want. Like games where you could level up to 99 and get the character tons of nifty stuff, but you only need to be 33 to finish the game, if you stick to the plot and are reasonably skilled. _

_One was just keeping tabs on Ayatane, Two never left his cosmosphere and Three was doing whatever the others asked him to. Four had more than a passing interest in what the towers could do with people's minds and the Sublimation idea. Level five was focusing on manifestation, a few other tactics, in-tower combat (Leard) and song magic, and could have beaten any of the other levels in a straight-up boss battle. Level six was focused on security and evading it (for obvious reasons), as well as what Ayatane actually was (another part of how to keep him). Levels seven and eight were focusing on applied history (figuring out where the buttons and levers were), dealing with other people and preparing for a fight with each other. And the world. _

_Of course, Lyner's conscious mind is aware of absolutely none of this. No reyvateil is aware of what their cosmosphere avatars do. The others are trading information and favors with each other (they're Lyners, after all), but not with him. While the others were out doing stuff, he was asleep. If he wants to access the tower's systems, he's going to have to figure out how to do it himself. He's not benefitting from any experience or knowledge they acquire, and since they, as cosmosphere avatars, were basically already hooked up to the tower's systems they had a huge starting advantage he doesn't have. If he wanted to walk around the way they do, he wouldn't know where to start besides going to a dive shop or seeing if Shurelia will teach him. When she's kind of busy._

_As established in earlier chapters, he's much weaker than he was at this point in the game._

* * *

"I thought that just turning off the song server would be enough. With no energy to channel, all of you should have become effectively human. Except for the first-generation beta types, who went to sleep along with the tower. But… It's not just Infel Pira. That won't accomplish anything anymore."

Mir had achieved immortality since she'd convinced the tower to store her the way it did Shurelia herself. Since Lyner and Leard had now become that type of reyvateil (as far as the tower knew) as well?

Leard might have looked frighteningly old when she'd woken up, but the tower was already restoring him to the saved state, the age he'd been when he was transformed. Lyner was looking healthier as well, even if the change wasn't as dramatic.

The trouble was that now the tower had them both labeled and saved, like Shurelia. Without song magic, third generations would suppress reyvateil traits and become effectively human, the same as the men whose reyvateil traits had been suppressed.

Unlike them, Shureila had her form generated by the tower, and thus maintained by it. Now that she'd instructed the tower to take care of them, Lyner and Leard were no longer dying. They wouldn't need diquility to survive, and Lyner could start fighting with his sword again.

But if the tower went to sleep again, they would fall asleep as well. Just like Mir.

If she went to sleep again, they would join her.

That… really didn't sound so bad.

Except no. She couldn't.

Without a mind guiding it, the tower couldn't respond to new circumstances. Grathmelding would be lost as well as song magic, meaning the people of her tower would be at an immense disadvantage if either of the other two towers attacked.

It was… it was just too irresponsible of her.

Yes, she was tired, Shurelia admitted to herself. She should perhaps think of finding a successor. After the problem of Mir was not just postponed but _solved_, Lyner was right.

The song he had sung for her… she wanted to believe in that future.

For a few precious seconds she'd thought he was her father, waking her up as he had back then, telling her, "Good morning," and asking if she was alright.

Why hadn't she realized why she was so fond of Lyner before this? The boy really did remind her of her father. The way he treated her was not slavish or regarding her as an asset but _concerned_ for her. Wanting to help her because she a person, not just his job or goddess. Because he'd chosen to consider her his family.

Leard had gotten a crush on her when he was very young that had never really seemed to wear off. Lyner automatically caught her when she tripped (she was not used to walking around, since her linkage armor hovered) and didn't think much of it. Although that might have been because all his worry was being taken up by Ayatane at the moment. Lyner was still Lyner, he still cared about everyone and everything, but there was someone who came first now.

She just wished she could locate those cosmosphere avatars. She didn't have any idea what Mir was up to, either.

Some days it just didn't pay to come out of hibernation.

* * *

All the chains had been removed for easier access except the one that bound his left ankle. It was hard to think that he wasn't doing enough for them when they had him pressed between them, too overwhelmed or wrung out to think. Touching, always touching him, kissing the mark on his forehead, tracing idle patterns that wandered over his back and down to his thighs. It was impossible to feel afraid. It was impossible to feel anything other than them. It was impossible to feel unwanted. It was impossible to feel anything other than loved.

When they murmured his name and asked him how he felt, if he liked it. He would always try to respond, for they loved to hear his voice, but sometimes all he could manage were wordless gasps.

They loved to hear those as well.

Ayatane knew, in the spaces when his mind wasn't taken up by infinitely more pleasurable things, that he really should be trying to get this Lyner to move on. He should be trying to get back to the real world before Leard ordered him executed (again, probably), Mother did anything drastic or anything else happened.

Except when he was here he didn't have to worry about opposing Mother, apologizing to Lady Shurelia or any others, fighting, dying… All of those things that had kept him torn apart inside for years, caught between love and love.

Here he could just… be.

He didn't have to be anything, not virus or knight, not anything except himself.

He was just… _theirs_.

No, he couldn't say that he belonged _to _Lyner. Lyner wouldn't like that, obviously.

Belonged _with_. That was better. He belonged _with _Lyner. At his side. In his, in _their _bed.

No wonder they didn't mind keeping Ayatane in their bed, taking care of him and drowning him in contented pleasure. He had done it for them. Although he wasn't fighting the way Lyner had. Well, not fighting so much as arguing. Ayatane was aware that he _should _go get things done, he just really, really didn't want to.

He was aware that in a few weeks he would probably get bored with sex and then the sixth would enter the paradigm shift that had already appeared and he'd have to deal with seventh and Mother and Leard and who knew what else, but he _was _a virus. He'd always thought he had a longer attention span than human teenagers.

Maybe he really could stay here forever.

Perhaps his thoughts and feelings could have run in that endless cycle until the space they existed in echoed with an enormous _crack_, a sound as if the world shattered, not just the barrier protecting them from the world.

He felt the sixth curl around him protectively and the seventh roll into a crouch. "Going to our mother-in-law for backup? That's _low_."

Mother-in-law? Ayatane was still trying to blink himself out of the haze of pleasure: the words didn't have time to penetrate until he heard his mother's voice. "Ayatane! Are you alright? How _dare _you!" A whirlwind of dark power picked up the sixth and _slammed _him down into the paradigm shift.

Ayatane found himself covered by the guardian's coat as Miros folded his arms at Mir. "Thank you _very _much. Do you know how much damage an unwilling paradigm shift is going to do to my level?"

"Yes. It's a nice bonus. _Get away from my son_." Or the Mother Virus, destroyer of one of the Wings of Horus, would _fucking kill him_.

"Mother, it's alright, I was here willingly." Ayatane wrapped the coat around himself with one arm, getting up as quickly as he could in order to calm down his mother before she tried to outright kill one of Lyner's avatars. Unwilling shifts were bad enough! He opened his mouth to remind his mother of how level six worked, before realizing that it was probably best to get her mind off the idea of sex. His mother's experience with it… hadn't been for her benefit. Hadn't even been _consenting_.

"You were _chained_." If this wasn't the inside of the tower, if Mir hadn't had total control over the physiological responses of her manifestations here, she would have been green just at the thought.

"…Only one ankle?" He offered, trying to think fast, because of Mir thought even for a second that Lyner had raped him, had raped _her son_…

Miros took refuge in audacity, as Ayatane should have expected from someone so obviously evil. "Oh please. What reyvateil _doesn't_ chain up her human until he begs to be allowed to serve his goddess?"

While Mir blinked, stunned by the concept, Miros continued, "It's _traditional._ I'm not going to skimp on Ayatane's courtship or let him think I don't want him just because he's a virus. He's my partner, it's his _job _to jump through hoops for his reyvateil, and he hasn't even made me a gift that contains his feelings yet." Like Lyner had for Aurica _and _Misha, to prove how much care he had for their hearts and how much effort he would put into safeguarding them.

Ayatane winced. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean for you to feel neglected."

As thought that had anything to do with it. "You know what, I'm demanding a gift." It was his right as the selfish avatar.

"What would you li…"

"_Think of something_." Honestly. Miros vanished.

"You haven't given him anything yet?" Now Mir was the one giving her son a disapproving look.

Ayatane had to hand it to Miros-Lyner. He had effortlessly sidestepped Mir's anger and recruited her to his side. "I've been busy… but that's no excuse."

"I should think not." Hadn't she raised him right?

…Oh. Right. She had barely raised him at all.

And she'd just barged in on her son having…

By Ar Dor, she sucked at this parenting thing, didn't she? Her one consolation was that she wasn't doing as badly as her parents had, but then a rock would have been a better parent than the ones she'd had. Actually, a rock would have been awesome by comparison. It wouldn't have done much in the way of nurturing or sticking up for her, but neither would it have gone out of its way to hurt her and she could have used it to bash her tormentors' heads in.

…She let herself indulge in the fantasy of having nice sharp rocks instead of parents as a child for a few seconds, enjoying the blood before she jerked herself out of that happy place to deal with what was going on.

…Scientist brains splattered all over the wall…

Ahem. Focus, Mir, she told herself.

When she'd woken up, she'd intended to ask Ayatane to drop the other Wing of Horus, but this whole thing put the idea from her mind. It could wait. Speaking of which…

Mir cleared her throat, straightening her back and making it clear that the entire awkward conversation was now behind them. "All that aside, Ayatane, I'd like you to know that I approve of your choice of partner. You can have time off to do whatever courting you need to do or," um, "a honeymoon. But you _are _inviting me to the wedding!"

"Of course, mother." Why did it even need to be said? Of course he'd want her there.

"Lyner may be Shurelia's lapdog…" Oh, right, she was trying to make up with her son, _not _badmouth his fiancé. "Some of his cosmosphere avatars aren't so bad." Well, one wasn't, the one that had told her where to find her son and helped her rescue him. "You were right about wanting to keep this one. We've been talking, while we were looking for you, and you should – but after you've given his level seven that gift!" She wagged her finger at him.

"Yes, mother."

"Right. Well, have fun. I'd suggest the bleeding heart of an enemy, but I really do have to approve of how your Lyner deals with his enemies. Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

The guardian nodded farewell as well, and Ayatane was left alone to remanifest his clothes on and wonder what exactly had just happened.

And how dead he would be when he showed his face in front of Leard and Shurelia.


	23. A Mother's Work

_Has anyone read _The Seventh Tower _by Patricia C. Wrede? Shurelia and Amberglas have a surprising amount in common, really._

* * *

Composing a hymn to turn reyvateils into humans wasn't as simple as one that just activated what was already there. It would be simple enough for Shurelia to block their access to the tower, but that wouldn't solve the problem. If there was some way to make diquility more effective, or keep song magic energy from entering their bodies so they weren't being hit with that radiation, that would help, but this was the classic problem, the problem third generations all had, writ large.

Shurelia hadn't been able to solve it back then (and turning the third generations into humans would have been kinder than letting them live short and brutal lives), and she had no idea where to start when it came to solving it now.

"Lady Shurelia, I brought you some shaved ice." It wasn't actual food, but at least it would get some water in her. "Have you eaten?"

"I don't need to eat, Lyner." She needed to concentrate. "I'll take food when you take diquility." Theoretically, he didn't need it anymore, no more than she needed food or water. Theoretically, pure-blooded beta types would never be allowed to train as warriors in the first place, let alone spend every waking moment that wasn't being spent on the effort to stop Mir, one way or another, in a frenzy of training to regain what he'd lost. The fact the tower restored him would keep it from killing him: it wasn't keeping him from having circles under his eyes worse than Leard's.

"It's not the same thing," Lyner protested. Of course she knew that. But did she? Lady Shurelia had never needed it in her life. She didn't know what it was like. How vulnerable it made you, to have someone touch you like that. Make your body react against your will like that. It was a loss of control, and to give up that control to anyone you didn't trust with it was _nothing _like being a, a picky eater or worried about poison. "Lady Shurelia… everyone's worried about you."

"No they aren't." She had only made public appearances in her armor, to reassure her people. "You're the one fussing over me." Going to the trouble of finding something she'd actually eat, and of course he wouldn't have told anyone it was for her or showed them that he was worried, that would hurt morale. "Lyner… go to bed."

"Leard's worried about you too. You've been up longer than I have."

"And I spent most of that time lying down, with my mind examining the tower." And training Leard to do the same, so he could keep watch while she worked on other projects. Not to mention that he wouldn't be able to push himself the way Lyner was, but that wouldn't keep him from trying, so she'd needed to find something productive for him to do that wasn't exhausting. Wait. "Leard?"

"Of course he's worried about you, Lady Shurelia. Not that he'd ever _dare _show it." No more than he'd admit weakness or praise his son. "I finally figured something out. You never seemed lonely, but that wasn't because you didn't want a partner, was it? Everyone needs someone to stand at their side. You just never seemed like you wanted anyone you could confide in, or be clumsy in front of, because you didn't think that was something that you could have. You weren't looking or waiting because you gave up. You got used to being alone. I was thinking about it, and of course you'd want to protect yourself. You know Leard," how I feel about him, "and he was…" It had scared Lyner, that he'd looked so old, so close to death. "But… You don't have to do anything alone. Not if you don't want to. There are people that want to help you, Lady Shurelia. This city _exists _because people want to help you."

"…How did you know that?"

"You never told me much about yourself, and it was important, so I looked you up in the tower, after you taught us how to access it from the dive shop. And Mir. There were a lot of things that made me think." Tastiella, too, had been working so hard to protect everyone, all this time. "You shouldn't have thought that you had to save everyone all by yourself. If you'd actually wanted to rest, I wouldn't have minded so much, but you didn't. You were sacrificing yourself for everyone. If it was what you wanted, it wouldn't have been a sacrifice."

That was true, she had to admit. "I didn't mind it."

"You didn't want it. Lady Shurelia… you need to think about what you want. I'm not the only one who wants to make you happy, and if you don't know what you want, then…" He hesitated. He didn't want to say this. "You know that Leard likes you, right?" This was so embarrassing: _please _let her admit that she knew what he was talking about.

"Of course we're friends. We've known each other since he was a small child, just like you and I."

Ok, that was a good excuse to let it drop.

Lyner didn't think that Shurelia had realized yet that all this, what she'd done to save Leard (Lyner hadn't been in immediate danger) meant that unless something happened, they weren't going to die and leave her alone.

When that sunk in, then maybe he'd try to get them to admit what that they knew the other one knew…

As little as he liked the idea of Leard and _anyone_, much less Lady Shurelia, having a partner made a huge difference. Lyner hadn't looked after himself for his own sake, since other people were more important, but he'd been able to for Ayatane's.

He and Lady Shurelia were more alike than he'd thought…

"Lyner, this is a war. This isn't the time to try and set people up."

"Actually? I think it's the best time. And so do all the manuals." It was military doctrine.

"I don't have a cosmosphere: a partner diving into me wouldn't make any difference." She was powerful enough as it was.

"It makes a difference. To have someone to protect. To have someone that you know will have your back, if you need it."

"I have all of you to protect, and I know that the Knights of Elemia will stand by me."

"Alright, Lady Shurelia." That was enough, for now. "I need to get the rest of these over to the music rooms before they melt." Where Misha and Aurica's singing abilities and frequencies were being examined. "I'll grab some sleep then, I promise."

"I'll eat the ice." She had to if he was going to, since she was the mature one here. "But diquility would be a lot better for you than a nap," In some out of the way corner, since they were pressed for space and Lyner's old quarters had practically been ripped apart looking for evidence.

"I…" He sighed. "I can't give up. I won't. He knows how to deal with a level six, it just takes awhile sometimes. She can't have killed him. Still, he wouldn't want me to get sick." He took a deep breath and let himself feel the weakness, the slight trembling he'd spent the day suppressing. "I'll ask Aurica." Or Misha. They'd both given him the honor of helping them grow stronger. They'd been willing to show him their minds: it would be wrong to not give them both the same trust, to let them see his vulnerability.

"There are plenty of other people who would be happy to help you." Who weren't Mir's daughter.

"I know, but Aurica's done it for me before." He'd have to argue any other reyvateil into shoving it in all over again, since they knew how painful it was and no one trained as a knight would even consider such a thing. He'd get yelled at if anyone knew he'd asked her to do it that way, because of how dangerous it was.

Luckily, Shurelia seemed to think that his real reason was that he didn't want to betray Ayatane, and Aurica was Ayatane's sister, and hence trustworthy, and Ayatane must have already gotten used to the idea of her taking care of it when he wasn't there, from the report Shurelia had gotten.

"Oh, right." Lyner rubbed his forehead. Yeah, he really did need diquility, if he was forgetting things like this. Or at least sleep. "Jade wanted me to…" Hmm?

"Lyner?"

He wasn't able to put the odd feeling into words (if he had, Shurelia would have known he was talking about getting pinged) before Ayatane materialized in the room.

Both of them had thought that when they saw each other again there would be babbling, questions, explanations, how worried they'd been, if they were alright, that they'd missed each other: all the things that they'd wondered while they were apart or decided that they'd tell the other.

Instead, their lips as well as their arms sought each other out, pressing against each other fiercely, both of them trying to push the other back not for the sake of dominance but to keep them there, safe, back to the wall, while their hands asked the questions their voices weren't.

Lyner put up a token fight, but he was the one who got pressed down onto Shurelia's desk. It was inevitable, since he'd been running himself ragged while Ayatane had just been having sex the whole time.

Lyner couldn't really tell Ayatane, "Don't do this to me again," or blame him when the whole thing was obviously Lyner's fault, or his cosmosphere avatar's anyway.

At least it hadn't been Mir. At least Ayatane's mother hadn't killed him, or locked him away, or worst of all altered his mind. She had the power to do that, to take away even his most precious memories, Ayatane had told him once, in the Silver Horn. He'd wanted Lyner to know, just in case she did. Just in case Ayatane ended up attacking him, so Lyner wouldn't think that he wanted to do it. Could try and jog his memory, show him signs that they'd known each other a long time.

No, this was the Ayatane he knew, and who knew him, and the relief drowned out the voice that said that he was making out with Ayatane on _Lady Shurelia's desk_, while she was sitting _right there_.

His conscience might know that he really _should _care, but it was really hard to when Ayatane released his mouth so that he could breathe but then took his breath away a second later by biting at his neck – not hard, but he could _feel _it, and then his tongue lapped at the glyph and all Lyner could do was let out an entirely undignified whimper, because he'd _missed _it and he _needed _it and Ayatane!

One of his legs had already hooked around Ayatane's, since he wasn't supporting his own weight, and as his hips moved up he vaguely sort of wondered about wrapping them both around Ayatane's weight, so he had more leverage to push against him with, although it would be kind of hard to apply much force when his legs had already turned to jelly and yeah, Ayatane had _definitely _spent that time with his sixth cosmosphere avatar, because he knew how Lyner's body worked a _whole _lot better now, and it had been good before.

Eyes tight shut, focusing on the feelings, he put his hands on the back of Ayatane's head to push him down, pull him close, so he didn't see Lady Shurelia, still blushing furiously, regain the composure necessary to dump her shaved ice down the back of Ayatane's shirt, in the absence of cold water to splash on the two of them.

"Ah! …Oh." Oh no. "Lady Shurelia. My apologies?" Ayatane attempted.

Lyner had to tilt his head back and roll his eyes up to look at her. Boy, they were in so much trouble.

"This is not proper behavior! Ayatane… But Lyner, I expect better of you!" She had expected better of Ayatane, once, but no longer.

Lyner had to push Ayatane to stop lying on him so he could stand up. "Sorry, Lady Shurelia. It's my fault."

"How was it your fault instead of his when he's the one that, that jumped you?"

"Actually, we kind of jumped each other, and I was the one that knew you were here." From Ayatane's 'oh shit' expression when he saw her, he had clearly been oblivious. Lyner smiled sheepishly as he tried to fix the damn robes.

"Well." She cleared her throat.

Then recited a rapid line of hymnos.

Ayatane felt something around his neck: cold, hard, and pressing against his windpipe in a way that frankly panicked him: having a copy of human reflexes was inconvenient at times. His reflex as a virus was to try to dematerialize, only to cry out when it didn't work. At least he'd shied back from the disruptive cacophony that surrounded him before it damaged his signal. A jamming collar? They didn't work on Mother, she was too powerful, and he wasn't even a reyvateil. He'd never considered that they might be a threat, but if he couldn't reach the tower?

"Former Knight of Elemia Ayatane Mishataka, hereafter referred to as Ayatane Miros: You are confined to the environs of Platina until I find the time to put you on trial. Be advised that any more attempts at escape," he'd clearly tried it the instant the collar went on, but Shurelia wasn't going to kill him for what he'd done when she startled him, "will be punished with death. Cooperation, on the other hand, may win you some clemency." What he'd done to poor Ms. Mishitaka could never be forgiven, but right now, they needed information on Mir.

Lyner grimaced, clearly wanting to protect on Ayatane's behalf, but honestly, that was the best he was going to get at this point.

"Yes, Lady Shurelia," Ayatane managed to force out. He must have fallen when he'd let go of his body only to have to snap back into it: he tried to pull himself together into a more proper kneeling position.

"Are you alright?" Lyner asked quietly, not so that Shurelia wouldn't hear but so that it would be clear that he wasn't trying to intrude or overrule her judgment.

"I'll… be fine." He managed to smile for him. "I'm just…" He couldn't stop hearing the dissonance.

Not fooled, Lyner put a hand on Ayatane's shoulder. The familiar frequency gave him something else to focus on, and he was able to at least rise to only one knee.

"What do you know about Mir's plans?"

His mind was blank.

"Well?" Shurelia snapped. "Answer me!"

"I'm sorry, it's a little hard to think. She didn't give me any orders, except to find the gift Lyner's next avatar wanted. I was there when you were woken up, and then I was with dear Lyner's avatars until she… thought she was rescuing me. I told her that I was alright. Then she left and I went to find Lyner." He really should have checked to see who else was there: what a stupid oversight.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Lyner asked again, still quiet but a little more forceful.

"The song is very distracting. No, it's not a song, it's…"

Shurelia said it was, "A jamming collar. They prevent the songs of reyvateils from reaching the tower." It had been worth a try. They used synthetic emotional frequencies to counter the frequencies the reyvateils were emitting. Hmm. It was emitting peace, trying to sedate him – so he was as scrambled and stressed as he looked – and hatred.

Not that that necessarily proved he loved Lyner. Who knew how it worked for viruses.

The truth was easy to say, Shurelia knew. People needed to be able to think to invent lies. "The collar stays on."

"Of course, Lady Shurelia," Ayatane said, clearly operating on reflex.

"It's ok, I'll stay with you," Lyner promised.

"Thank you," Ayatane said, also quietly. "Dear Lyner…"

"Lyner, I'm putting him in your custody. Don't let him out of your sight."

"Thank you, Lady Shurelia." For outright ordering him to keep an eye on Ayatane, which meant Leard couldn't send him away if the interrogators wanted to do anything Lyner would consider over the line.

"Don't thank me, watch him. Now get him out of here and report to Leard, I have work to do."


	24. Her Holiness

_Lyner is a very traditional sort, after all. Closet romantic. Of course, originally a 'romance' just meant a story with a happy ending (as opposed to a tragedy), so yeah… very good at pulling off happy endings, Lyner is. Except…_

_There's that mug line that says 'I can only please so many people per day.' In this case, it refers to how many problems people can solve per day, and since Lyner does have plenty of problems of his own, the fact he's being more selfish and focusing on his own problems, and those of his precious person, while a good thing, means that other people are going to have to step up to the plate. Unlike Lyner, who goes through the game seeming convinced that he 'has to' do all this, even if only because this is what decent people do, Aurica is the character that dreamed of being a great hero/figure of legend._

_Up until this point, I've been focusing on Ayatane (novel-length fic, too many plotlines…) , but I've had Aurica's powerups and awesome scenes in mind since the beginning, and this is the start of the transition to her story arc. Well, it won't be entirely her story, Ar Tonelico is nothing if not the cast working together, but you could say that 'phase' is going to be her storyline. Although I'll still be touching on a lot of others, and the Metafalss storyline will start revving up soon… Although I've decided to give it its own fic so it doesn't get treated as a subplot of Sol Ciel's story. Sadly, this means I need to go through and remove some foreshadowing._

* * *

Pulling Ayatane along, and occasionally giving people a look to get them out of the way, Lyner managed to snag Jack as he went by. "Tell Aurica you guys are going to have to go without me." This time his quiet voice _wasn't _meant to be overheard: whispering actually carried further than a soft voice.

"Oh?" Jack followed Lyner's eyes to the collar, and noticed the glazed look in Ayatane's eyes. "Right, but what are we going to do if there's a dividing gate?" None of them could open those except Lyner.

"Misha's a pureblooded beta type and Aurica can summon Mir's level of power, even if she can't control it as well. If there's a gate in your way, blow it up," he advised, before letting Jack go and moving along.

"Right…" They'd have Krusche along too, Jack reminded himself. It should work out.

The door to Leard's room opened. "Ayatane came back, it was my cosmosphere avatar, Shurelia put this collar thing on him, I'm not letting him out of my sight and I have orders from Lady Shurelia to that effect, and I also have instructions to get some diquility." The door to Leard's room shut.

Leard kept snoring.

Lyner wondered if he should leave a note, but he was already headed back to the room he'd been assigned, whether it was really his or not.

He really _was _tired.

* * *

"So Mir broke this Bourd and his accomplices out of Tenba?"

"Well, she doesn't know for sure that it was Mir," Krusche reported. "He might have had more accomplices. Why would Mir want to work with Bourd, anyway?" He had been working with Falss, and wasn't Mir doing all this because of how people like him treated reyvateils?

"Cannon fodder, obviously," Jade told her. "Do they even know if it was viruses or humans?"

"No. The security cameras got shut down. Looks like an inside job, and they didn't leave anyone alive."

"That sounds like Mir," Jade said.

"Wait." Unohana frowned. "Were there any reyvateils among the guards?"

"Yeah. The head of Tenba made sure of it." The ones with grudges would keep a very close watch. "They were killed too."

"Mir had a dim view of reyvateils who continued to serve their oppressors instead of joining her. Collaborators was the nicest word she had for them." Hmm. "That's probably evidence it was Mir. It was this Bourd who kidnapped Misha: his type would have tried to capture the reyvateils and force them to serve him." They would be booty in his eyes, not enemies. "And no one has any idea where they are?"

"No. They're searching Firefly Alley, and they aren't letting any airships on or off except mine."

"If they vanished without a trace, it's likely Mir's doing." Jade nodded, calling up the hologram of the tower in the war room. "Wait." That was right, Lyner had said something about that when they finally got around to debriefing him. "Isn't there another way off the subtower?" She enlarged that area.

"Right." Krusche nodded. "This, here." She pointed to the route Misha had found out about. "It's not common knowledge. Misha found out about it from an information broker."

"If Bourd often did things without this Ayano's knowledge, he probably knew about it." Secret passages made many things possible. "Obviously she must know of it." As the Commander knew all of Platina's passages and boltholes. Odd that they'd called it an 'underground railroad…'

"Where are Shurelia and Leard?"

"_Lady _Shurelia is attending to more important matters. It is the duty of the Knights of Platina to see to it that she is not bothered by minor matters, and she has in fact ordered us not to brief her about anything that it isn't vital for her to know." Not when Mir could read Shurelia's mind. If they told Shurelia everything they knew, Mir would know too. "As for Commander Leard, he's sleeping." Unohana had arranged that. "Is there anything else?"

"No. Besides that, everything's quiet." If Krusche was prone to stating the obvious, she would have said 'too quiet.'

"What is she up to?" Unohana tapped her fingers on the pad she'd been taking notes on for Saphir and Leard, as frustrated as Jade had ever seen her. At least this was giving them time to threaten the reservists (and more than a few soldiers) who hadn't wanted to report for duty with court-martials, sick partners or no sick partners, and try to work out alternative tactical doctrines. Saphir was trying to convert his tower guardians to obey other people's voiceprints, but they all knew that if he could hack them, Mir certainly could.

"If she's setting everything up for a decisive blow, there's a clear target," Jade said, even though she considered it stating the obvious.

Seeing Unohana's reaction, Krusche asked, "What's the target?"

"One we don't think we can defend," Unohana admitted, grimacing since her calm façade had already slipped. "I don't think there's any alternative but to accept Radolf's offer. We need troops to guard the Child of Light, and with the strength of the tower guardians there, if they were set to attack an all-reyvateil force it would be a slaughter."

"Child of Light?"

"The guardian of the Plasma Bell that supports the other wing of Horus."

Oh boy.

"You can't let people find out she might do that," said Krusche. There would be panic in the streets, and the chaos would make the coordinating they were doing to try to stop this impossible. They'd try to steal Krushe's airship, they'd… It would be impossible to keep order, much less fight Mir.

"Obviously not. They'd invade Em Pheyna." Panicking refugees trying to get to the main tower where it was safe, and the Teru had a reputation for not letting people pass? And the Teru wouldn't be happy, not with two invasions (Misha's theft and Kyle on his way through) in such quick succession. "And we're obligated by treaty to defend them."

"She might not." Unohana tried to think positive. "She wouldn't want Reyvateilia to end up like Metafalss."

Jade snorted. "It's not as though creating new land is difficult. Look at this Firefly Alley. Humans can do it on their own, without knowledge of ancient technology or song magic, and Mir has both. That may have been her plan all along, to literally create a new land for reyvateils."

"We'll need to wait for Commander Leard to make a decision on this."

"Technically, no. And it's Lyner that knows this Radolf, anyway."

"You can't be serious." Not when Lyner's mind had been tampered with. Unohana had been the one to dive into the woman who had raised Ayatane.

"We need to at least send Radolf a message to get some troops together, even if we don't tell him the details. We don't know how much longer Mir will give us."

"Are you kidding? Of course he's been calling up all the church soldiers." The loss of song magic and grathmelding in the lower world had been a crisis even before the revival of the Mother Virus.

"Regardless… where is Lyner? He was supposed to get information on the Crescent Chronicle for me."

"I'll ask a page to go find him." Unohana stood up. "I need to get back to my own assignment." Krusche had arrived when the Colonels were changing shifts and Unohana was telling Jade what had happened while Jade was studying the capabilities of Misha and Aurica.

Jade nodded, acknowledging the transfer of command.

"He's probably with Ayatane."

The two of them turned to stare at her.

"Jack said he saw them in the halls… You really didn't know?"

No. Everyone must have assumed that someone else had informed the Colonels. And technically, that someone should have been Lyner, since he was insisting that the virus was his partner and that meant that Lyner was responsible for him.

Now Jade was the one to stand up and brush her dress uniform (it was the only one that was clean) back into shape before picking up her spear. "I'm going to pin that boy to the wall."

Unohana sighed and sat back down. "Krusche, would you mind sending a few pages in here?" It appeared that she was still in command, and there were several dozen things that needed to be checked up on.

* * *

The cacophony the collar emitted made it impossible for Ayatane to sleep, and he couldn't even use this time to plan. There was nothing to do but lie there with Lyner curled up around him, sleeping, and that was no hardship, although he knew there were things that he _needed _to do, which was frustrating in and of itself.

He was fairly certain this wasn't how jamming collars worked for reyvateils. They should only react to frequencies the reyvateils were generating, meaning no song, no godforsaken racket telling them to lie down and die.

If he could stop feeling emotions, that would make it stop, but he couldn't do that. He couldn't stop being afraid for Mother, and it was impossible not to feel love for his partner when he was sleeping in his arms.

He clung to that love to protect himself from the assault of pure hatred.

"Ayatane?"

Raising his head, he frowned. "Aurica? What are you doing here?"

"Jack told me that you were back. Are you alright?" That was a stupid question, huh.

"I'm fine, it's just this collar." He managed to smile for her, he was good at fake smiles. "You shouldn't be found here, with me. Lyner's asleep." People might think they were conspiring.

"How is he?"

"Overworked, but that's…" Normal for him. "He'll be fine."

"We're going to get the hymn crystal you told me about," she told him.

"That's… a very good idea. I don't know what Mother's up to, I don't understand… it was strange." Their conversation. With the avatars there. "Be careful, Aurica."

"I will." She nodded. "Lyner was going to come with us, but…" She understood why he'd told them to go alone. "Misha's coming too, and Jack. Krusche's been busy flying the airship, but she found someone who would loan us a lot of explosives, and Radolf offered to help too." Aurica knew she couldn't take him up on it: she was just saying it to reassure Ayatane and Lyner that they'd be alright. The Church needed him right now, just like Platina needed Lyner and Krusche could fly the airship the fastest, to carry messages.

"It's in the Silver Horn," he said, then realized that of course he'd told her that. Hadn't he? "The inner chambers, where the organ is. The defenses might have turned on again along with the tower, but… you'll figure them out."

"I hope so. None of us knows very much about ancient technology, not even Misha." Who was supposed to just sit there and sing.

"I'm sorry. I am… I have been stealing Lyner away this whole time. Greedy of me."

"You need him," Aurica told him. Lyner never abandoned anyone unless they forced him to. "I understand."

"I can't go with you. They'll think that I've kidnapped him again. It's not just me." It was what might happen to Lyner if they decided he was too compromised. If they gave up on saving him.

"They're worried that you've been brainwashing him," Aurica told him.

"I can't put him in any more danger." Ayatane shook his head, and felt Lyner twitch at the movement. He shook Lyner's shoulder, gently and then a little harder. "I'm sorry, Dear, but you do need to wake up," he said, the familiarity making him feel nostalgic. His fingers rubbed at Lyner's neck a little, but now he had to avoid the glyph so he didn't wake up Lyner's hunger as well.

Lyner twitched again, then pushed back against Ayatane's fingers for a second before opening his eyes.

"You should go with Aurica."

"I can't take you with me." Since he was awake anyway, Lyner yawned, stretched, and didn't ask how short a time he'd been asleep. He'd fulfilled his obligation to Shurelia, and he needed to get back to work and inform people before they got really ticked off.

"You should still go."

No. "I can't leave you here with Leard and Unohana. They'll let Dist and Jade dissect you."

"That hymn crystal may be the only hope." It had been made of the hope she had lost.

"It was Aurica's idea to go find it right away. She waited because I had to stay here. I'm sorry, Aurica." Lyner looked at her ruefully. "I should have told you to just go without me when you came up with it." They could have had it by now.

"But… we need you." Aurica looked down at her hands and felt guilty for saying that. For lying.

"No, you don't. I saw the security of the Silver Horn on the way out. You don't need my ID. If anything, the only ID you really need is your own. The Silver Horn was built for Mir. You might even be able to order the guardians there not to attack, if you can mimic her voiceprint as well as her frequency."

Ayatane said, "No. They'd attack even Mother. It was her prison as well."

That was a pity, but, "You don't need me. You've gotten a lot stronger. The monsters there are nothing you can't handle."

"It's thanks to you," Aurica said, and wondered at herself. Why did it sound like she was trying to convince him? Of course Lyner had been a big help.

"No, it's because you've finally started to believe in yourself… And because the colonels make great drill sergeants. I may have helped give you the push you needed to realize the hymns, but that's the thing. That power was there already, you just had to realize it."

Aurica looked down at her hands. "The power of Mir."

Lyner sighed, finally sitting up. "I used to think that way. That all the power I had was because I was Leard's son. That was why I got all that training, and someday I was going to inherit Leard's power, become the Commander and have to do the same evil things he did because of it. But things have changed. If you pull this off, then I won't have to do my duty. I won't have to ask Misha to go back so everyone else can live, and I won't have to train her daughter, and her granddaughter, and probably her great-granddaughter too. I won't have to send them to sing their lives away for nothing. Mir's power… they did terrible things to make her stronger, and she did terrible things with it. But she started out just an innocent little girl who suffered things that no one should ever have to suffer. It was cruel and… all for nothing, for worse than nothing. At first, I thought that she needed to see that the world had changed. If someone… if one of the people who did those terrible things to her could prove it to her." A human could lay his life on the line for her, as her parents, as _someone _should have. "But… What you said about the song. That it was for her parents. I think Mir knew what she needed, what she wanted, all along. When I was a kid, I thought that Leard and Shurelia could fix everything. I thought that they could save everyone, and Misha too.

"I thought that if they couldn't fix everything, that was because either because they didn't want to or they weren't good enough. I decided that when I grew up, I would be what they should have been, someone who could take care of everyone. But doing all this, trying to protect everyone, made me see that it's just not possible. They weren't perfect beings that were choosing to do evil things, they were just people doing the best they knew how. I think that all of this made me grow up, a lot. I finally saw that Leard and Shurelia need protecting too. Not just by a knight, but a person." He patted the bed beside him, for her to sit down as they had in so many inns and tents.

She sat, and let him hug her. She'd missed this.

Lyner told her that, "When Mir was a little girl, she probably felt the same way. That her parents, that someone could make it all better. But she's not a little girl anymore. She's your mother, and Ayatane's. She tried to do what she could for both of you and she couldn't do a very good job. Looking after an army is a big job, too. She tried to make Reyvateilia so they could all be happy, but she failed them and they all died.

"What her parents did to her was wrong. What happened to you and what Ayatane did because of her? That's also wrong. Back then, she must have hoped that if she could just get her feelings across to them, they would listen to her. They would love her and change their ways. That was what I thought Leard and Shurelia would do. I didn't understand why they had to do it. If anything, I hated it more because they were doing it to protect me." He laughed. "It was kind of stupid of me to think that it was all about me, that I was the only reason she was singing, that it was all my fault. Misha was singing for everyone." Even if it had brought happiness to no one.

"No," Aurica told him. "She was singing for you. You were the only person who ever saw her just as her. Before she met you, it was something that she did because she was forced to and it was her duty. After she met you, it was something she did because she _chose _to. You… you make that difference a lot. I dreamed that I could become the holy maiden and do good, but that would have been because I was the holy maiden, not because I was me. You made me see that I already could do great things. Not as the holy maiden or the daughter of Mir, not because I'm anyone special, but _because _I'm no one special. Because I'm just me. You made me see that I could do great things because I'm me, and that's all I need. You would have been that nice to anyone you met."

"Aurica, you did heal me when I crashed. I knew that you were already a good person."

Aurica started laughing, quietly and overjoyed. "You're the one that made me realize that. That I didn't have to be good _enough_ in order to be a worthwhile person. I was so focused on trying to be good enough that I didn't see that I was already doing good. I wasn't trying to prove anything when I healed you, I didn't want credit, I just wanted to help you. I didn't learn everything I could in order to impress people, I learned because I was interested and I'm actually good at it! I was so focused on being good enough, on becoming someone else, that I didn't see myself. I thought that I was weak, and it's because of you that I found out I'm one of the strongest reyvateils there is. I thought that I didn't have any courage, and now… You're right. I don't need you to come with me."

And that was why she would always love him. Because as much as she wanted to hold him tight and never let go, she didn't need him anymore.

She pulled back from his embrace, but only so that she could fling herself forward, wrap her arms around _him. _Lyner made a small surprised off, but let himself be pulled into her arms.

Lyner would have helped anyone, and she was 'anyone.' A person, with her own value. She'd been just a face in the crowd and thought that meant she wasn't anything worth paying attention to. "I thought that I had to earn the way you took care of me. I wanted to be your girlfriend so that you wouldn't leave, so that I would have a hold on you, because I loved the way you made me feel. But I don't have to be anything to you but _me _for you to care about me, and that's why you make me so happy. Although I'm really glad that I'm your friend. I want to eat funbuns with you, climb on that statue, everything. And I want you there at my wedding. If you're Commander by then, could you perform the ceremony?"

"I'm sure Shurelia would be happy to. Can Radolf _get_ married?" Given his rank?

Aurica shrugged and squeezed him. "We're reforming the church anyway. I found some really interesting old doctrine…" Later. "I want you to do it." Because it was all thanks to him that she was able to dare all this. "You should stay here. Ayatane needs you, and I don't. I'll always want you as my friend. As my big brother-in-law. But I don't need you. I'll always be there for you, not because I need something from you, but because I want to be. I want you to know that."

"…Aurica, thank you." He couldn't talk for a bit, too overcome, but when he could, he said that, "I know it doesn't really matter to you anymore, but you're going to be the greatest holy maiden of all time. I know that you can do what none of them ever could. I know that you can save Mir. You made me really happy, saying all that. Mir's parents are dead. She can never get what she needed from them, but you're her daughter. If you let her, she can still have what she always wanted. She can be there for you the way she always wanted. And I don't think…" He swallowed. "There's no way she wouldn't want to be your family. Even if you don't need a mother anymore."

"I'm always going to miss my parents, even if they weren't my real ones. I can't imagine what it would be like to never have anyone. I want to be there for her." The way you were there for me.

"This is all very heartwarming, but what exactly is it that you've been plotting?" Jade stood in the hallway, Leard looming behind her.


	25. Spoken Word

_More of Shurelia's arc, and a bit of Misha. I'm disappointed that I haven't been able to include a major subplot/development arc that affects the whole story for Misha in here, unlike Shurelia and Aurica (and Mir, of course). The next fic will handle that, but still. I'm also neglecting Radolf a bit, but I joke that this is because he's Aurica's arm candy and gets overshadowed. He, Misha and so on are still important to saving the world, of course, but it's a bit hard to write him overcoming some inner struggle that will help determine the fate of the tower when it's Radolf._

_I'm a bit sad that Misha wasn't tagging along with Jack and Krusche in Ar Tonelico 3, even if I understand why the developers made that decision: they would have had to decide to include Lyner or not include Lyner, given Ar Tonelico 1's various endings, and it would basically have opened up a whole kettle of worms, although Digital Devil Saga and Mass Effect use linked save files for those kinds of things. Still, it would have been a natural extension of Misha's decision in the game, to travel all of not just her own tower with the others. I understand not going with Mir and Spica, but she was traveling with Jack and Krusche in some endings anyway. _

* * *

"Ah, Lady Shurelia. May I have a moment of your time?"

This was the second time today Lyner had been on her desk. Actually, she didn't know which was worse, Lyner making out with that virus on her desk or what was obviously a Cosmosphere avatar wearing (or not wearing) a much more modest but still indecent version of Mir's old costume having the gall to just appear in front of _her_, the administrator.

"Ayatane owes me a gift, you see, and he can hardly find one for me when he's a prisoner. Much less figure out what I want when he can't think."

She lowered her gaze to her papers. "The jamming collar won't interfere once he stops fighting it."

"No wonder you were helpless against Mir. You're the tower administrator and you don't know how hymns work? Pitiful."

"If you think you're replacing me, you have another think coming!"

He waved away her comment. "Putting all that aside for the moment, do you know what the definition of a virus is?"

"A rogue program." Roughly.

"And a program?"

"A process running on the tower." Or at least that was what it meant now. "A spell." That was what the knights called the ones they could use.

"And the programming language of the tower?"

"Hymnos." Or that was the short version.

"And what do you call hymnos containing emotion?"

"A hymn."

"There, you see?"

"See what?"

It was humiliating to have a _cosmosphere _avatar look at her and clearly be decing he needed to put it in smaller words. "Ayatane is a program. A walking spell. The main difference between a spell and a hymn is that a hymn contains emotion. So, when Ayatane feels emotion…" Come on, surely she could put two and two together when it was laid out for her.

"…It's encoded in hymnos, along with the rest of his mind and body." And the collar would react to it.

Exactly. "It's a very creative means of torture, but it's not going to get you any information."

"If he can fake emotions for so many years, then he can calm down." He deserved the hatred the collar made him feel.

"Young love." The avatar shrugged, smugly. "He _adores _us. He can't rest without us at his side… It's all very romantic. And keeping him collared is not going to help you stop Mir."

"Like I should take your word for it?"

"I want to stop Mir just as much as you do. That incomplete paradigm shift made a mess of my level, and if she conquered the tower, it would be harder for me to." He picked up the little ceramic bunny that was hidden between more serious desk things. "Not to mention that Ayatane will be miserable if she wins."

Shurelia glared. "Put him down." That bunny was a gift she'd been given… about five hundred years ago.

"You're so upset because I'm threatening a bunny? How _do _you think Mir will react to you torturing her son? I'm not going to tell her, but the Guardian _is _a Guardian, after all, and he already recruited Mir to rescue Ayatane from Six's clutches, which was simply not fair at all."

"What is Mir up to?"

He smirked. "Currently, she's occupied. You should have a few more days before she does anything productive." His next expression spoke of disapproval. "It depends on how long it takes the rest of them to die."

"She's killing people?"

"Not people worth caring about. The trouble is, once that's done? You're hurting her family, so she'll go after yours. It's only fair, after all. How _is _Leard managing navigating the tower systems? His cosmosphere avatars were no challenge at all." Tsk. "Too old for his brain to adapt that easily, perhaps? Do you _really _think he can stand against Mir? In what should be your domain but is already as good as hers?"

Shurelia's eyes widened.

"You made him immortal. He tortured reyvateils for training. Mir won't delete him from the tower and kill him, but she'll make him wish she would." He leaned forward, looming over her. "Take. The collar. Off. I want my betrothal gift, you want to spend the rest of your tenure as administrator not listening to Leard's broken whimpers – and Mir _would _make sure you couldn't block the sound from your mind – and this way, we both get what we want."

Shurelia swallowed. "Thank you for warning me."

"That's not a _warning_, that was just a little advice. _This _is a warning." He wagged the bunny in front of her eyes before holding it up to his to examine it. It was a knobby, imperfect thing. "If Ayatane dies," he said, contemplatively, "_this_ is what happens to your tower." Clawed fingers squeezed.

"You…!" She lunged forward to strike him, but he caught her hand easily. She might be an origin, so there was no _need _for her to be physically weak, but she hadn't taken advantage of that, had she? She was no stronger than any other reyvateil.

"That was a warning, not a threat. It's what _will_ happen, not something that _I _will arrange. You really need to take better care of yourself. Normally you're smarter than this." Just because her humanoid body didn't require sustenance since the tower would keep it from breaking down didn't meant it didn't work better with proper blood sugar and so on.

Why weren't the guards coming? She wondered, but settled for a glare. For now.

"Let me summarize the situation that you're in. On the one hand, _Mir_. That would normally say it all, right there, except it's even worse than that. You spent the centuries since that battle forbidding all _sorts _of knowledge. Back then, you had a trained support staff of skilled programmers and hymnic warfare specialists. Now, there's only you, Leard, who is a liability, not an asset, Lyner, who doesn't know what he's doing either, and a handful of officers who can manage some little parlor tricks like controlling a few tower guardians. Back then, you had people who could instantly update all of them for you, construct firewalls, and share your load so you didn't have to do everything and Mir couldn't see it all in your mind, and Mir _still _kicked your ass. You _know _you don't stand a chance, it's just that you can't go back into hibernation since the alternative is even worse." A leg swung idly as he talked.

"As for that alternative? For the first time in… actually, since before you sent Frelia there, all of the leaders of Metafalss are behind the Metafalica project instead of working to sabotage it to stay in power. The previous government was overthrown, and the group working to restore it is headed by a young boy who seriously believes that his family actually gave a damn about the goddess. The goddess has been found and Dr. Enju cleared her name by telling all of Metafalss the _real_ reason the creation of Metafalica was forbidden. But, since they still believe that they actually _need _Metafalica, they're looking for a way to get more power, both conventional hymn power and IPDs. Both of which they can get here. And after, well, you know the history better than I do, they're _not _going to believe you if you claimed that you changed your ways and were actually going to help them now. You have until someone wins the civil war that's going on there right now, and then the victors will turn their attention here. Unless you sing Exec_Suspend again, in which case Ar Tonelico has no time at all. No, it doesn't look good for you at all."

Shurelia stood up straighter, although she still couldn't look him in the eye. "And whose fault is that?"

"_I _actually have a plan for dealing with them. Although a wonderful reason for the goddess' supporters as well as Nenesha and Infel to trust me was just dropped in my lap… And, I'm not you. I don't have the history with Metafalss that you do and we were talking about _your _situation, not mine." He smirked. "You'll miss me, once I'm gone. Damned if you sing, damned if you don't. Or you could save the tower by retiring and letting me replace you… Of course, there is another option. One that won't work if you kill Ayatane, or hurt him and anger Mir too much."

"Another option?"

"Leard will be here shortly to tell you all about it." He chuckled. "Take off that collar as soon as Ayatane comes in, won't you? Otherwise, the Guardian and I will have to do something about it, and don't you think enough of Platina's people have been killed already?" To keep the last word, he vanished.

An instant later there was a forceful, angry knock at the door.

"Come in!"

* * *

"Oh good, I got you before you left." Lyra ran up, carrying a bag that she handed to Lyner. "These are the things I found for you, since I'm here anyway. Spica wanted me to tell you that she has a package waiting for you in Firefly Alley."

"Package?" But Lyra had already run back into the depths of the tower.

* * *

"Misha?" She couldn't really avoid him in a small airship. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said all those things. And I shouldn't have forgotten you."

"I was really mad, that you forgot me. It was… my big moment, you know? The one that made my whole life mean something. When you gave me Hama and I said that, I felt like… Like it was finally_ my_ life. When I said that I was doing all of this for you, that meant that I wasn't doing it because Leard and Tastiella made me, or because I had the bad luck to be born the next Star Singer. It meant it was _my _choice. That was why I was smiling. I was happy for _me, _not for you. I finally had some control over my life. Singing became my decision, and keeping Mir imprisoned became my responsibility. Or that was what I thought. When you remembered and said that, it made me realize that I wasn't taking responsibility for my own life. I was making _you _responsible for it. For something you didn't even want. I wasn't just making you my reason, I was making you my excuse for giving in." She shook her head, looking down at her hands. "It's my life. I need to do things for myself, because I want to. I wanted to protect you, but it wasn't your responsibility. It wasn't your fault. It was," she swallowed, and held her head high. "It was my decision, Lyner. And I don't regret it."

Weren't confessions supposed to take a weight off your shoulders? This one made her feel like she was suddenly weighed down by hundreds of pounds.

But they weren't chains.

They were a load that she was carrying. She may have just made Lyner hate her, she had no idea where she was going to go with this, but it was her load. The weight of all her choices and responsibility.

Before, they had all been stolen from her. The only thing that was her own had been a small ocarina. Now, she had finally accepted them back, and it was almost terrifying.

"No, it was my responsibility too, and everyone's. You were singing for the world, Misha. The world owes you. I owe you. I just… It's hard to remember already. I can't stand to think about it." It was as though something terrifying would happen if he did. "And that's… You deserve better than that."

"You didn't choose to owe me."

"I didn't. I think part of me really hated you for that," he admitted, before reaching forward to touch her arm. "Back then. But now I _have_ chosen to."

"Lyner…" She shook her head. "I'd do it again. I'd go back. For you. Even if you didn't want me to. Even if you hated me for it. I'd go back."

"No you're not. There's no point anymore."

"I would, though." Even if it meant her death, and her daughter's, on down the line into eternity. "So you shouldn't forgive me." Not when she didn't regret saving his life. "But I think that the person I really hurt with all this is Mir. She didn't want reyvateils to suffer and die, either." An eternal hell, watching the Lune line. An eternal reminder of how evil the world was and how terrible it was that she had failed. How many were suffering because she had failed. "Honestly? I want to sing that song. I feel like I have to make it up to her." There, that should make her position clear enough.

Krusche couldn't come into the Horn with them: she was too busy carrying mail and supplies.

Lyner and Ayatane wanted to save Mir, obviously.

Shurelia and Jack… not so much, although they were going to assist for strategic reasons, in Shurelia's case, and because Misha and so on thought this was best, in Jack's.

Aurica was determined to do this, and Radolf had been very happy to bow to her wishes.

Misha wanted Lyner to know that she really did want to save Mir.

Lyner sighed. "I don't want anyone to make anything up to anyone."

"Yeah," Misha agreed. "If we start playing the who suffered most game, Mir wins." And at the same time she had the most to make up for: how could that possibly work? They had to just wipe the slate clean, that was the only way to move on with their lives. For everyone to finally be free.

"Hold on," Krusche announced, "I'm going to do a sweep over there." The path from Firefly Alley to the tower.

"Bourd's probably long gone," Misha told her.

"Or he could have assumed we'd think that. It won't take long."


	26. From Such Roots

It wasn't long before they saw the first of Bourd's men.

Although Krusche had to move closer for them to be able to identify that brown-stained mess as a human body.

That… Was a mistake.

Shurelia's eyes hardened. She recognized this.

Aurica paled, but she'd seen the bodies of those whose killers had decided to have a little fun before.

Misha closed her eyes and hid behind the seat in front of her before peeking out.

Radolf put his hand on his spear, but forced himself to take a good look in case there were any clues.

Krusche clamped down on her emotions and clung tight to the controls to center herself. She was in an airship. Right. Airship. In her domain, in the embrace of the sky.

Jack held his hand to his mouth and struggled not to lose his lunch, even after the things he'd seen left for dead on a battlefield. The fact he'd seen this before, knew what some of that was like, just made it worse.

Lyner jerked back, closing his eyes, before forcing them open, leaning forward like Radolf, trying to examine the corpse.

Ayatane whispered, "Mother…"

That body wasn't the only one. A few of them were still alive.

Including Bourd.

"Leave him there," was Misha's vote.

"We need the information he has," Shurelia said. "Although he doesn't likely have much to tell us besides the obvious. This is how Mir's army dealt with reyvateil abusers." The creative castrations, the slow, painful deaths: she'd seen it before. "We'll take him as far as Tenba." Drop him off there for medical attention. "I'll use a hymn to get him stable enough to move, but he's going to need surgery. It's possible to insert an object into a wound and heal the flesh up around it. I can see a few lumps just looking at him, and there are probably ones that aren't obvious."

When she started to sing, several of those lumps erupted from Bourd's body, whirling towards her though the air. Lyner and Ayatane, who had stuck close to defend her out of old habit, were able to hit a few away from her, but there were too many coming in too fast on erratic, looping paths. Slamming into Shurelia's body and shredding it apart.

"Siren's canned song," Ayatane said, almost like a curse as he saw what he'd blocked. "Mother would _not _use these."

Since hymns were out, Lyner had already knelt by Shurelia's side to try to revive her with medicines. "Maybe he already had them, and she wanted him to know what it was like."

"Perhaps," Ayatane admitted.

Jack was still green, and seeing Shurelia's body mangled in front of his eyes hadn't helped with that. Lyner was a little too good at thinking like Mir sometimes. He'd seen that Lyner hated reyvateil abuse, but the fact he'd been able to come with a rationale for sticking those in somebody at the drop of a hat?

Shurelia was already climbing to her feet. "Lyner, use Healies on Bourd, but not too much at a time, and see what you can cut out. Ayatane, this seems to be the area where the worst offenders were placed. See who else is still alive and put them out of their misery." So Mir hadn't been killing anyone Shurelia would care about, hmm? Honestly, the other Lyner had been right about that.

"Yes, Lady Shurelia," they said, almost in unison. Like old times, when they had been her knights instead of each other's.

"Krusche, take the others and drop them off at Firefly Alley, then come back here. We'll need room to transport him safely."

"The three of you are staying here alone? Sure you'll be ok?" Jack asked.

"Don't worry."

"Mir may not kill either of them and she wouldn't kill me too quickly." But the element of risk was why Shurelia was having _Ayatane _be the one to deprive Mir of her fun by putting them out of their misery. "The rest of you are fair game. The sooner you leave, the sooner you can return for us." Move.

* * *

When they got to Firefly Alley with Bourd there was a gurney waiting, along with President Ayano. "After what happened last time, I don't really want to keep him here. I've lost too many good people. Still, he's our mess to clean up. Fix him up, interrogate him, and stick him in an isolated cell."

Shurelia clearly agreed with that means of handling it. They couldn't keep Mir out, and there was no reason to let more people die. Ayano clearly thought that if Mir wanted scum like this, she could have him. The President of Tenba had lost too many good people to even give Bourd the mercy of a clean death and risk Mir's wrath. He'd brought it on himself.

"Lady Shurelia?" Are you ok?

"I'm worried about Leard," she confessed to Lyner. Well, the sooner they got this done, the sooner she could go back, and the defense plans had been shaping up well, from what little she knew. She would have liked knowing how much danger he was in, but what she knew, Mir could find out. "Where is this Spica person?"

* * *

"I wonder who paid for whatever this is?" Lyner wondered as they walked over.

"I'm afraid I haven't had a chance to go shopping," Ayatane told him. Not to mention that he didn't have any money on him and now was not exactly the time to try to access his account. Forget any future paychecks.

"I'm sorry, Lady Shurelia," Lyner apologized.

"It's not your fault you can't control your cosmosphere avatars." Shurelia was quite thankful that she didn't have any. "They're Ayatane's responsibility, since he _is _your partner, after all."

"I'd like a bucket of kitty candy," Lyner said hurriedly, trying to change the subject, to a silver-haired woman, who, after a bit of chatter with Misha, handed him a large number of Grathnode crystals and wouldn't say who they were from.

Lyner's eyes gradually grew wider as he looked at each one. "Conqueror's Spirit, Grand Destroyer, Almighty Power… I'm kind of sensing a theme here."

"Are you sure they're for this Lyner?" Misha asked Spica.

She just laughed quietly behind her hand. "As though I'd make a mistake like that. Really, Misha."

"Origin: Alpha, Origin: Omega…" Lyner wondered why they'd give him some for Aurica and Misha before he remembered that right, he was a reyvateil now. "…X Irresistible?"

That made Ayatane move over there and peer over his shoulder. "Ultimate Speaker, that's appropriate."

"Are you _sure _these aren't from you?"

"I wish they were."

"Yeah," Misha agreed. "This is going to be hard to top. A mysterious gift from a secret admirer? Maybe you've got some competition, Ayatane." Competition that wasn't her or Aurica, either. She joined them around the bag and reached in. "Satisfying Criticals, Sunshine on the World?" She grinned.

No, Ayatane told himself, he was not going to take this bag and throw it over the edge, but he _was _tempted. Who could possibly have access to such rare crystals? They probably had these in the armory, stored away to avoid theft. Shurelia seemed innocent, it couldn't possibly be Leard and he didn't think any of the others with them could have broken in there. Who had access to ancient rare crystals and would give them to Lyner without identifying themselves?

Oh no. Ayatane buried his face in his hands. _Please _let this not be a dowry.

"What's wrong?"

Shurelia had also figured it out. "It can't be, those traditions weren't around in Mir's time. Not in this form."

"I told her about some of Platina's traditions, trying to convince her to spare the city," Ayatane confessed.

"Those are from Mir?" Aurica wondered, hopeful. "That would be nice of her."

"The traditional gift from the mother of the bride to the groom consists of grathnode crystals. Well, the gifts aren't exchanged all the time, but when people want to have traditional weddings or it's a marriage of state, they can be." Shurelia had performed enough marriages over the centuries to know every possible permutation.

"Isn't it the father of the bride who gives dowries?" Krusche asked.

"The father of the bride traditionally gives the groom a weapon. Accepting it is a promise to protect the bride. Well, nowadays it is. Back in Mir's time, when the Apostles of Elemia were a fringe group," aka cult/terrorist movement/rebel army, "it was a knife, and it was more often given to the poor girl's foster father than her husband. All reyvateils had to be fostered out, that or sold, but a few were lucky enough to wed."

Jack knew that one. "The gift of a knife to sever a friendship? So, a threat, then?" A reminder not to hurt her.

"Yes, there was that aspect too." Shurelia didn't want to think about certain aspects of those days. "Reyvateils were not regarded as human, much less valid marriage partners, and could be confiscated. In fact there were many people very opposed to reyvateil marriage, and of course there were laws against it. If it was discovered she would be confiscated. Reyvateils couldn't carry weapons, so the groom kept the knife safe, should the bride ever need it." When the alternative was being hauled off to be bred and given a lobotomy or brain-damaging drugs if they showed too much spirit. Unless they were automatically given them, because a good reyvateil would know it wasn't a real person, never dare to enter into a sacrament that should be between man and woman.

Krusche shuddered. "That kind of stuff they don't teach you about."

"They tried to conceal their families, either disguising them as humans or treating them as proper reyvateils in public, so no one suspected, but there was always the risk of discovery." People fell in love, even if they hadn't expected to: that was what cosmospheres were all about. Then they had children. Then they had a choice to make. "It was illegal for reyvateils to stay in the households of their fathers after they changed, since it was 'obvious' that men had to sleep with their reyvateils, to make them more powerful and to breed them before they died. So they would try to find another believer to take in their daughters, in exchange for taking in theirs. Originally, the gifts were given to that family. Nowadays, children can stay with their parents and marriages are normal instead of forbidden, short, and tragic." Before diquility, part-human reyvateils hadn't lived past twenty. It wasn't that uncommon for the husband to use the dagger, if she had lost the ability to move her arms and the painkillers he could get a doctor to prescribe(supposedly for him) weren't enough. Better that than to take their loved one to a dive center to be put down and tossed in an incinerator.

Nor was it uncommon for him to follow after her.

"Why grathnode crystals?" Krusche asked morbidly.

"Enhancement crystals allow seemingly harmless objects or clothing to be upgraded into weapons and armor. It obviously wasn't a good idea to look like you were expecting to have to fight law enforcement officers at any moment." So they had a chance to get to safety. "Although often all the mothers had to give were magic enhancement crystals." After all, by the time their daughters became reyvateils their mothers wouldn't need them anymore.

"There was a reyvateil rights movement before diquility? When they lived such a short time?" Jack was surprised.

"Yes," Shurelia said, softly. "Foolish and pointless, wasn't it? Still, there were people who thought it was the right thing to do. And people fall in love." And fight the world.

"So this is to protect Ayatane?" Aurica asked.

"Mir does seem to care about him." Who knew whether or not it would make any difference.

"Did the groom or father of the groom… Or the foster parent getting the reyvateil give anything?" Krusche asked, trying to think of it as just a system.

Shurelia nodded. "Yes, and that part wasn't just a custom. Money. Reyvateils were bought and sold in those days. It would have given it away if the man didn't pay for the reyvateil. Her family would use it to buy things for her instead of keeping it, of course. Or sometimes the money would be given to the reyvateil instead, to keep in case she had to run."

Misha frowned. "Wait. Is Mir treating Ayatane like the reyvateil in the relationship?"

"It's appropriate," Lyner said, closing the bag to end the conversation. "Reyvateils have rights now." And Ayatane was in danger of execution, even if it wasn't only because he was a virus. Or because he had the gall to be in love with Lyner.


	27. Malum

_The real reason Mir thinks that Lyner was an idiot in AT2 is likely his disrespect for her literature. Otherwise, you'd think a strategist might have noticed that he pulled it off. Sure, it was a seemingly-ridiculous plan, but Mir made her position in the tower very secure. A conventional war or attack would have done absolutely nothing. The only way to stop her was what Lyner did, and he managed to find a way to… not fix Mir, but make someone who had been that determined, and with that good reason, see that there was an alternative. _

_The only way to beat Mir was something so incredibly counter-intuitive, and he came up with it. What was Lyner's explanation for war? That people didn't work hard enough to understand each other. By understanding others, we come to understand what drives them. Why they do things that seem like simple cruelty at first glance. By working to understand the people around him, especially Ayatane and Mir, he found the way to end that war._

_When we don't give other people a chance, we don't come to understand them or respect them. In this universe, Mir was giving Lyner a chance since he made Ayatane happy and was a reyvateil now. Meaning she actually started paying attention to what kind of person he was, if she was going to have to get along with him._

_It's interesting to think about the Wouldn't Hit A Girl trope in the context of this universe._

* * *

It only made sense to stop at the inn while they were there. The port didn't actually exist for diquility, it existed for hymn enhancement grathnode crystals. His hymns… Lyner had good hymns, but that was thanks to Ayatane. He still sucked at using them. At least he could fight with his sword again now, but anything that could help, he wanted to try.

He wanted to be a proper partner for Ayatane, although what part of this was proper, normal, safe? Ayatane had his own spells, too, even if they weren't hymn magic. Mir's gift had made Lyner think about how blurry everything really was.

Tenba got a lot of travelers on business: the inn had thick walls, for meetings, and their room was a bit away from the others, too. He didn't have to worry that they might be overheard. Ugh, knowing Unohana had been on the other side of the door that time hadn't been fun, even if Ayatane had eventually been able to get him to forget about her and just relax.

Diquility first, even if he didn't need as much anymore. He'd still gone without for a couple weeks, and Ayatane was worried and a little guilty because of it.

Not that it was Ayatane's fault that he'd spent those weeks having sex while Lyner was worried out of his mind and trying to do twenty things at once, he reminded himself.

His sixth cosmosphere avatar was a lucky, lucky bastard.

It was much easier to not be jealous in the morning, waking up with Ayatane and remembering the previous night.

He'd missed being tended to like this. Held like something precious, soothed during those seconds of terrifying vulnerability. "I wish that there was something like this that I could do for you," Lyner said softly, touching Ayatane's impossibly silky hair. Not that he wanted Ayatane to be weakened or forced to bare himself like this, but it was that very weakness that made it mean so much. Ayatane could have hurt him, could have left him to slowly starve (even if he wouldn't die from it, now that he was a proper Moderator), and instead he did all this. The contrast, the fact that Ayatane wasn't taking advantage when he very well could? It was proof of everything he'd ever wanted, everything he'd never dared to want.

Ayatane opened his eyes, and Lyner wondered if he had been awake all along, just pretending to sleep since Lyner had told him once that he was jealous of how much Ayatane had gotten to watch him sleep. "There is. I started to tell you, when Unohana interrupted. What it means to me that you could kill me."

"I don't like that." That he could kill Ayatane with a handful of words, the way Mir could. The spell had appeared in his mind when he'd wondered how it could be done. He wished it hadn't.

"I didn't like the fact that you were so sick. Now that you aren't… I have to admit that I do kind of like giving the crystals to you. Aurica was right: it shouldn't be about need. But I still feel… safer, because you need me." He didn't have to be afraid Lyner would leave. "Even if that's nonsense. Needing crystals isn't the same as needing me. There are all sorts of people who would be very happy to do this for you." He'd been _incredibly_ jealous before

"I shouldn't like having, having a leash on you." Lyner looked away, ashamed. Now that Ayatane had raised the possibility?

"Until death do us part. I want to stay by your side forever. It's not a bad thing, it's not something that matters if you never use it, now is it? A red string instead of a leash." Wasn't that a pretty though? Although, after what he'd discovered during his time with that avatar, Ayatane had to admit the thought of a leash did appeal.

Because he was already leashed. He'd been created as Mir's warrior, Mir's attack dog. Lyner was the reason he'd changed, the one who had hauled him back from that fate. The reason he was 'only' a murderer instead of a mass murderer.

"If you say so." It was fair if they were even, right? If they both needed each other.

And… remembering what Ayatane had said in the Silver Horn, about what Mir could do to him…

Lyner prayed it wouldn't come to that.

He needed to get stronger. To protect Ayatane. To protect _everyone_, but Ayatane was his partner. "Ayatane, would you help me with another insertion?"

"You need more diquility?" Already?

"No, a grathnode crystal insertion. I've brushed the dust off my sword skills, but I need to work on my hymns. We both can fight, but I'm the one that can sing."

"Do you want to use one of the new ones?"

"Yeah." Lyner nodded. Normally, it wouldn't be fair to use someone's gift against them, but Mir had given them these knowing that they were going to fight her. "Maybe this means that she wants us to stop her. That part of her does have hope that this isn't necessary. That you and Aurica can show her a way forward." He hoped so.

"It's possible she just wants to make sure that you can protect me against Shurelia and Leard. She said that she approved of how you dealt with your enemies. Or something along those lines, I was a little distracted at the time."

"What? I didn't even finish Bishop Falss off before you kidnapped me."

"Perhaps she thought it was crueler to defeat him so soundly, then have him brought to trial, tortured and humiliated before the end?" Ayatane shrugged. "Instead of a quick, honorable death in battle."

"It's not like _I _have any control over what Leard does." Lyner didn't like to think of Falss. Kyle Clancy had been Leard's friend once. Leard's Ayatane, even if they hadn't been _that _close. It made him have to pity his father a little, and he didn't like that.

Even if, to be fair, he had to.

"Mir would be your mother-in-law, if Aurica's plan works." Lyner had been the one to realize that the only way to stop Mir was to convince her to stop: Aurica had been the one to put that together with what Ayatane had told her about the crystal. Ayatane thought she could convince Tastiella to let them try. He hoped so, at least.

"And Shurelia might be yours."

"…I don't think Mother would like that."

Lyner laughed. "Yeah, that's getting way ahead of ourselves. We need to start getting ready soon."

"Which ones do you want to insert?"

"We should start with the blue magic ones." For his healing and support hymns.

Killing the enemy, protecting everyone: one of the two was more important. Not to mention that if this worked, they would be facing Mir, and someone would have to sing in combat while Aurica was singing Harmonius. Misha had volunteered, but Lyner didn't know if that was safe, much less a good idea.

They would be fighting Mir where Misha and her family had sealed her: the last thing they should want to do was remind her of their suffering.

"Having song enhancement crystals installed will weaken you."

"If I'm singing, I'm not going to be on the front lines. Although I will be on the front lines today," Lyner acknowledged. He, Ayatane, and Jack were the only physical fighters that would be coming with them, since Krusche had flown Radolf down to take command of the church knights and take them to guard the Plasma Bell, so they would be entrenched by the time Mir got around to that.

He felt bad that Krusche had to take off again as soon as she'd dropped them off, and then spend the whole night flying people back and forth while they'd slept. Hopefully as soon as she'd dropped them off at the Plasma Bell she'd be able to dock at Em Pheyna and sleep for a few hours. Leard had ordered her not to go far from the airship in the lower world, just in case the news about the Plasma Bell got out and panicking people tried to steal it. Em Pheyna wasn't on the Wing of Horus: they were in no more and no less danger than Platina.

"Still," Lyner continued, "I should try them out, right? So that I know how much they affect me." How many he could safely have installed when he might be trading off combat positions. What installing them had done to the reyvateils in his care, because the goddesses knew they'd lied to him about what diquility insertion was like.

If they hurt the entire time they were in a reyvateil's system, or anything like that, he was going to be upset. Not with Misha and Aurica, they wouldn't really have known better and they would have wanted to help. He remembered how he'd winced when Flute had taken a hit for him. It would only have been fair for him to do something painful to help too, since Flute was, and he didn't even really like Flute. Shurelia, though, had asked him to install some crystals into her back in Platina, which he still hadn't told Ayatane about. The alternative had been for her to ask Leard, and even if he had asked if she knew about his feelings, he wasn't going to refuse an order to try to matchmake. Or she might have accused him of that if he had, and it would have been all kinds of awkward.

He'd been well behaved in the couple weeks before Ayatane got back, just focusing on the myriad of duties dropped on his shoulders. Not to mention the ones he'd volunteered for, like diving into Aurica and Misha in preparation for when they went to get that crystal and challenged Mir.

He really didn't want to remember installing into Shurelia right now. Not when Ayatane was trying to coax him open. He focused on here and now, not the past or worries for the future. Just Ayatane, his hands, the crystal he held.

It wasn't much like diquility. Diquility gave him almost a rush of well-being, of energy and health, once it was absorbed. This fit into his mind, channeling energy towards a specific hymn, into a certain form. Ah, so that was why it weakened their bodies, to have hymn crystals installed. It wasn't painful, but it was sort of tiring.

Ayatane was asking him if he was feeling alright. Lyner had to shake his head: it was his first time but he'd done installations before and

* * *

Two fast knocks at her door, the sound brimming with urgency. "Lady Shurelia!"

Shurelia didn't need to sleep, but sleep mode was still an opportunity to clear her mind and do tower maintenance. Being startled out of it by a loud noise was alarming and false alarms were annoying, so she was grumpy enough. What, Ayatane panicked? No, on the verge of it, but even so. He'd always seemed so unflappable before, but then the things that normally upset children and teenagers had been small things to someone who had been made to fight a war. "Come in, and don't wake the rest of the inn!" Really!

He was inside and closing the door behind him almost too quickly. "It's Lyner. I inserted a grathnode crystal, and he went into stasis."

"Stasis?" Normally, Shurelia would have said he was overreacting, and that inserting hymn crystals was often tiring for third generations, but using a technical term implied that Ayatane knew what he was talking about. Not to mention that Lyner was effectively a pure-blooded beta-type. True, channeling that kind of power through a previously-human body was a constant strain, and a grathnode crystal wouldn't have helped, but that just made it more likely that they had a real problem.

Sleep mode was one thing, stasis another. It implied a defense mechanism. And something serious enough to trigger a defense mechanism. "Hold on," she told him. "I'll query." Yes, Lyner's files were in lockdown, protected against everything, even access by himself or his own body, preventing the constant access necessary for change or thought. What had caused the invocation of such a drastic defense mechanism? "Mir!"

Ayatane was shocked. "Mother?" Mother had done this? How? Shurelia and Ayatane himself had both set up telltales around Lyner's files: a hack this drastic shouldn't have come as a complete surprise.

"Of course me," Shurelia said, looking peeved with him. "I didn't get as far as I did by being a poor strategist. Really, Ayatane, just because I'm not going to kill your boyfriend doesn't mean I'll let him ruin my plans."

Now the shock on Ayatane's face was one of recognition. "Mother?" She was possessing Shurelia now? For how long?

"I thought I told you that I knew how much you cared about him? You were supposed to suborn and kill him and he wrapped you around his finger as a child? We both know Shurelia has all the empathy and people skills of a blind Elma in attack mode. Letting you help, _getting _you to help, getting her to go along with a plan like this?"

Not to mention causing Aurica to overcome her hatred of Bourd and want to become holy maiden not to fight bad humans like him and protect reyvateils like Claire, but to fight for the world? Helping her come up with a plan like this, if it wasn't his plan in the first place? Oh, he'd told Shurelia that it was all Aurica's, he probably honestly believed that, but Mir had access to Shurelia's memories, and it was amazing what difference a little encouragement could make, coming from this one.

It was just ridiculous. "Even his _cosmosphere avatars_ are born strategists!" Natural manipulators, able to see how other people worked, what to do to get them to do what they wanted and think it was all their own idea. The fact they worked _with _instead of against just made them more dangerous. Mir and the Metafalss Holy Maidens knew how to deal with evil manipulators and would have known better than to trust someone who claimed they just wanted to help, but someone who made it clear that they were helping them in order to help themselves had been listened to. Cosmosphere avatars who were like _that_ instead of being too selfish and self-centered to work to understand others, too shallow to make far-reaching plans? She should have realized what that said about the central personality earlier. "It was just too dangerous to let him run around loose any longer. So, I gave him a poisoned apple." Mother-in-law, stepmother, same difference. They both meant someone with a mother's position and power who wasn't related to the victim and had no reason to put their welfare over her own or that of her blood children. "He'll wake up on-Get out! Get out, get out, get out!"

Shurelia clutched her head, shaking with rage, until she was sure it was her head again. Mir had even been able to access _this _part of Shurelia's systems when Shurelia's attention was elsewhere? She'd already known that her body wasn't safe, but Mir had never done _that _during the last war. Shurelia had assumed Mir needed Ayatane's help to possess her.

Or had she had Ayatane's help?

"Lady Shurelia, are you alright?" Ayatane had stopped himself from lunging forward to catch and assist her when she started shaking. Perhaps he'd considered going into her body to try to force Mir out.

It was better for him that he hadn't, Shurelia thought. If he'd dared to lay a finger on her she would have assumed it was an attack. She'd already wanted the excuse, and the indignity of this, the violation!

Still nothing next to what Mir had suffered, she realized, and felt petty. "I'm fine," she said. Shortly, but still giving him an answer.

He still hovered, and she realized that yes, she had better sit down. She'd put certain systems into overdrive, fighting off Mir and she hadn't even been wearing her linkage armor when that happened. Perhaps she should start wearing it all the time again, incognito in the lower world or not. She should put it on, at least while she was alone in her room or in the Silver Horn, so it's systems could support those in this body.

Shurelia breathed in. Back to business. "She didn't place Lyner's cosmosphere levels in stasis." Cosmosphere levels weren't related to the mind's ability to think normally: Shurelia didn't have a cosmosphere and she was fine, same with humans. "She froze everything except those frequency ranges." The ones his remaining cosmospheres existed at. "Why would she leave them alone? Or did she try and fail?"

They both went quiet for a few seconds, nervously waiting to see if an answer would be forthcoming, if Mir was still watching them or could possess either of them again.

When nothing happened, Ayatane sighed, almost wincing. "I'm sorry, Lady Shurelia. She must have been watching, knowing that I would be worried." Mir had possessed Shurelia because of him, even if it hadn't been his fault.

Shurelia shifted, crossing her legs and sitting properly, pulling herself together. "So you really aren't in contact with her?"

Ayatane shook his head. "She doesn't have a means of contacting me, unless I make myself available for it. She didn't want you to notice me, and transmissions being received somewhere in Platina, or a presence in the tower, ran the risk of drawing your attention." If Shurelia had been looking in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or right, from Shurelia's perspective.

"She doesn't have a means of contacting or watching you except through me, then." And the tower cameras. Shurelia didn't like that thought. Mir would already be watching Shurelia's mind in case someone slipped up and Shurelia was told something Mir would consider useful intel, and if she was Mir's only source of information on her children then she would be checking in far more often. "I shall have to take Lyner and return to Platina." She was a liability on this mission. As much as she hated the idea of leaving Ayatane and Aurica unsupervised except for the Star Singer and a member of the Teru tribe, she couldn't be here. Not just for the sake of the mission, but for the sake of her duties as administrator of the tower. She needed to try to keep Mir from probing her mind, not encourage it.

She should put someone in command, she knew, but they were all as bad as each other. Ayatane was a good enough strategist and tactician that he didn't need to ask why Shurelia had made this decision, but he was a traitor. Aurica didn't have that training and she had a reason to be disloyal: both less good a choice and less bad. It evened out. Misha had been sheltered… _No, be honest, Shurelia, _she told herself. _She was imprisoned_.

As for Harmonica, he had been raised as a leader, but then he'd advocated the use of forbidden weapons, abandoned his home and become a dissolute playboy.

The least bad option was Misha. The best option was Ayatane. Except she couldn't put Ayatane in command, that edged too close to reinstating him as a Knight of Elemia. "You know that I can't pardon you," she told him, finally.

"I would think less of you if you did." He went down on one knee. "Lady Shurelia."

And yet he still encouraged Lyner's feelings towards him? "If you were simply a traitor, we could perhaps commute your sentence. Make it exile, or hear your argument that even your treason was in service to Platina." It wasn't like the Apostles hadn't had moles inside the government and law enforcement who had to do terrible things (that were normal back then) to maintain their cover, when they were a revolutionary group that were generally considered terrorists. They didn't make attacks on innocents, but they defended themselves forcefully and proudly, not to mention the occasional attack on a particularly bad lab or 'production center' to free the test subjects and breeding stock.

They both knew what was coming. "But," Shurelia said, since it had to be said at some point, to make it official, make it real, and they both knew this, "there is the matter of Ms. Mishitaka."

Ayatane could not be suffered to live. It was just that simple. Platina's laws had become looser over the years. Execute anyone who struck a reyvateil? It was ridiculous to apply that to children who were just play-fighting, and what happened if the reyvateil attacked first? Yes, in the early days, the Commanders had needed to be that strict. There had been a couple of cases where the reyvateil had attacked first, actively forcing the man to fight back so that he had the choice between being murdered or executed, and he'd still had to be executed.

They'd created strict laws, drawn a harsh distinction between black and white without regard for the exceptions that could happen, because they'd been dealing with the horror that _was. _In order for there to be mercy, someone first had to create justice. They'd been dealing with a world where hurting reyvateils was a _good _thing, first because it was how to get the appliances to work and then because they were enemies in wartime (many had advocated extra brutality in the face of Mir's rebellion, to break their spirits and keep them from joining in).

So the message sent by their laws, the creed behind them had been that _no one would hurt a reyvateil_. Not unless they were an enemy on the battlefield, and normally knights attended only to the front lines, the beasts and robots Mir's singers had controlled, and it was a reyvateil's job to kill the other reyvateil, as it was her knight's duty to keep her from being hit by the non-reyvateil enemies. Many of them had gone so far as to refuse to fight in self defense, even on the battlefield. Colonel Anna Trey had died that way, after her partner had been taken out. Just lowered her weapon, stood there and let Mir charge up without striking, and many had found that outright _heroic_. Reyvateils by the _score _had escaped from their handlers to join the Apostle forces, after that proof that they weren't lying. That they really wouldn't be hurt anymore if the Apostles won.

Now, her people were beginning to rediscover their history, wanting to know why Mir was doing this to them. Why the laws were the way they were.

Ayatane had tampered with a reyvateil's mind in order to get her to be obedient, do his bidding. Like so many before him. It had been quite common. Mir's experiences had been unusual in their excess, but no single element of what happened to her had been anything but normal and accepted.

Then.

Now?

"Even if allowing you to live was the price of Mir ceasing hostilities…" Now Shurelia didn't know what to say. Mir needed to be stopped, but allowing someone who had done something like that to a reyvateil's mind to live?

Then she realized something: How strange it was that she considered this a moral dilemma. She hadn't had a real problem with what was done to Mir, not at the time, and now she did. The tower had changed. _She _had changed. Ignoring the abuse of a single reyvateil for the sake of peace should have been a no-brainer. Ms. Mishitaka's suffering was far less than the Star Singer's, for one thing.

The realization made her hate herself. It also gave her hope.


	28. Sword & Shield

_And a trippy intermission, because this is the kind of thing that is trippy anyway. I like matching moods. _

_I just got the Atelier artbook: it is gorgeous. I'm hoping the Ar Tonelico one is even half as good. Tons of art, comparison of alchemy systems: Squee. __I'm also hoping it's good because I'm out of prewritten chapters, due to health and stress and such, and I could use the squee-energy to help me get this done. There should be eleven more chapters to go, plus an epilogue. Still, worst case scenerio, I'll be updating this every other week, alternating it with my Atelier series fic. _

* * *

Imagine a theater.

It is dark, and every seat as far as the eye can see, and farther, stretching into the infinite distance of time, is empty.

No one wants to see.

And this is very ironic, given the subject matter of the play.

Even now, there are those determined to catch every performance, let nothing pass unnoticed, and it is because of this that they do not truly look, and thus cannot see. They are not there for her, or for this. It is not possible to understand without caring, and they don't. Years, centuries, and more from now, people will curse themselves for not attending, but it is because they did not attend that they will be forced to recognize that they missed something very important.

A single spotlight shines down on a girl, who is even younger than she looks. She stands there, at the very front of the middle of the stage, and her eyes are empty. How could they not be, when they reflect the empty theater?

She is naked, save for long, black hair that isn't allowed to conceal anything. It's this very fact that makes the sight utterly unerotic. There is nothing to conceal because there is nothing to see, simply a doll designed by someone with the bad taste to make it anatomically correct, and everyone that should have been here has already moved along.

An emotionless doll, eyes empty, no self to violate by such exposure.

Except to be empty, to be alone, is to be a void.

A void is hunger, and hunger long-denied is pain. They do not see it because normally a void pulls at the world, and this one is sealed away, the body a hollow eggshell. One they thought would hatch nothing.

Two more spotlights suddenly snap on, and one of them shines down on a girl exactly like the first, except that when this one is cut, she bleeds. Her eyes are still empty, but her skin is marked with cuts and blood that almost seem like cloth and seems, the only clothing she can have. The only protection showing others that she is hurt. This proof that she is not hollow almost screams that she is concealing secrets, and from her left arm hangs a shield. It conceals nothing, she has not raised it to protect herself. For, after all, she has learned that the only way to stop the pain is to show them that they have succeeded in hurting her.

That must be done with her body, for her eyes must remain empty.

The other illuminates a larger space, covered in papers and the things befitting a young girl like the one that lies there, on her stomach, feet on the air, as she carefully draws something on several overlapping sheets of paper.

It takes a minute to realize that she doesn't have any clothing either, and this is because she doesn't need it. The floor holds her, her hair wraps around her, and what envelops her most of all is the light in her eyes, the clear awareness there that she is a person, and people have lives, and an inner life.

It is laid bare in the drawings that surround her, of knights and princesses, friends and rescues, but that isn't because she isn't allowed to hide it. It is because she _wants _to show others.

She's aware that the theater is empty, but what she's working on will change that.

She's drawing a sword. A sword of crystal, a sword of light, a sword made of all the things she's found in her stories to believe in. A sword of truth, of justice, of love, of making things right. She's going to make it so beautiful that it will never have to be stained with blood. All who see it will look upon it and know that it is _right_. A sword to cure blindness, and they will look upon the light and see her.

It has to be that perfect, because she's going to do battle with a dragon, the two dragons that keep her captive in this place, and she can't bear to hurt them.

She loves them.

She has to make them _see_. And then they'll fix everything, she knows it.

Looking back at the first one, the one in the center, some of that emptiness becomes expectation. She has nothing now, but she is keeping her heart clear, waiting for it to be filled. Waiting for victory.

There does not seem to be hope in her, she is a box with an open lid and there cannot be hope inside, they would see it, but the fact the box remains unfilled is proof enough.

There would be dust, if not worse, by now. If she did not keep it tended. If the blood was not wiped away before it could seep into the cracks.

Quiet humming becomes singing, and fills the theater. It's a song she heard about, although they beat her and told her to compose more powerful hymns, like that one. So she's doing that.

Except she'd not making a hymn that will make her a new place. She's making a hymn to change this one. A sword that will cut through iron chains and never hurt anyone. She knows what it's like to be hurt, she knows it well. She could not do that to them.

Finally it's perfect, springing to life off the page, shining so brightly, and the girl at the front cedes her place. They do not change places, however.

When it is over, the front of the stage is empty, The sword clatters to the ground, falls away into the darkness.

The one who was there stays where she is, behind and to the left of the one with the shield. The central spotlight illuminates nothing.

For a long time, there is no silence, no movement. No one is there to be angry that the star is missing.

The cuts on the shield-bearer's body start to heal, in fact. They are not reopened. The blood begins to dry, hardening on her skin.

It drips down into her eyes and her arm moves, finally, to wipe it away. Tears are not permitted, even tears of blood.

When her arm lowers, one can see that the blood has seeped down into her eyes.

That emptiness is now filled with living crimson heat.

She watches, now, or it is clear that she is watching. That there is a reason she did not raise the shield to cover her eyes despite how much it cost her.

Her shield arm reaches out to the side now, to cover not herself but the broken doll. The doll moves of its own will, makes a choice, to hide behind this offered shelter. She embraces the red-eyed one from behind and melts into her.

The two remaining lights focus on her, and she raises her head, clothed now in dignity and holy wrath, and steps forward.

* * *

Another stage, and this one has a set.

And an audience.

A young blonde woman dabs at her eyes, and a brunet man lowers his head, wishing there was something he could do.

A young girl with sandy hair has fallen to her knees in the middle of the stage. There is no spotlight. None is needed, the set itself is burning. The play she knew, the one with lines and a supporting cast, is over.

Their bodies lie around her.

"Why?" she asks. "Why?" she asks again, shaking, bracing herself with her hands as she wobbles, hair matted with blood from a blow to her head by a mailed fist. She can't understand. It doesn't make sense, and it has to. The world needs to make sense again.

Two girls stand beside her, one with a sword, one with a shield.

"Because this is how it is," says one, stepping forward to her left, and watches the area wryly, studying this brutality, raising the shield to protect her. This is the way the world really is, not the idyllic village life. Put like that, things make sense. She can learn how to deal with it. She can learn from the people who did this what _works_, and never be so weak ever again. This is a good thing: now she knows what strength truly is she'll become strong, and then she'll make them all sorry.

"It shouldn't be," says the other, but quietly, because it's her fault they were struck. Because they tried to fight. She wants to kill them, but she knows that's wrong. Killing is wrong, her family's bodies prove that. Even she doesn't believe in the sword she's carrying.

The girl shakes her head, closes her eyes and covers her ears. Both of them are wrong, all of this is wrong.

None of her can see a way forward.

But she still gets up, eventually. She still staggers on, and they watch, and wait. For her to decide, for her to call on them.

* * *

"Why?" the boy asks, and there is no stage. He doesn't _want _anyone to see. "I don't, I don't understand." It's been explained, sort of, but he still doesn't. He just can't. His hands grasp both the sword and the shield, but they are slipping from his hands.

They're useless, after all.

And yet they are caught.

One knows why. "They want to protect you. How we not understand that?" one wonders. Even if they would never agree with it. "But_ I_ don't want this." How dare they do it for him? "_I_ wanted to protect _them_." This was _wrong_.

The other snarls. "How could he… I don't _want _to understand. I'll _never_ understand how anyone could do something like that!" He _refused _to. "I'll never be like him!"


	29. Heavier Than a Mountain

"So much for not looking a gift horse in the mouth." Krusche folded her arms, frowning in condemnation. Sure, Lyner was too, well, Lyner, and he should have learned years ago that he'd get taken advantage of if he didn't watch it. That he couldn't just run all over the tower for any reyvateil that batted her eyes, or in Lyner's case seemed to be In Need at him.

Still, anyone that actually would take advantage of the trust Lyner placed in them like this? Pretend to be giving a sign of good faith, one that Lyner couldn't refuse and still be Lyner, and use that to hurt him?

When Krusche had started flying, there was a bin in the airport of the Airport City Nemo that airship pilots could go through looking for parts. If someone had a part that was, well, a little bit broken but could still be salvaged, or they didn't need anymore because they'd replaced it with a better one, then they'd toss it there, and if someone needed a rare bolt, or a pump, or a bit of metal to melt down, then they'd go through the bin. And when they had a part to get rid of, well, it was quicker to drop it there than haul it all the way to the regular dump.

It was a handy little thing that all the pilots knew about. Luke had told Krusche about it, and she'd used it herself pretty often, for parts to experiment with and to drop off her experimental parts after she'd moved on to the next one.

A month after Luke disappeared, after she'd stopped waiting and started trying to find a way to improve her airship enough to find out what had happened to him, Krusche had gone to drop something off and dig through for some copper & found the bin empty. After staring for a second, she'd shrugged, left her part there, and asked a couple pilots that were working in the same hanger what was what.

Some jerk had started just coming by and taking all the parts.

The first time, they'd thought it was just some kid with a dream of building their own airship. They'd all been there, once. Not to mention that someone would have had to tell the kid about it, so they'd all assumed that it was on the up and up. But when it kept happening again, and again?

The city guards wouldn't call it robbery, not when it wasn't anyone's property. Even if someone had taken it, it came under the salvage laws, same as loot from inside the tower. It didn't belong to anyone in specific, and it wasn't anything you should put a price tag on, since one pilot's trash was another pilot's treasure, but that wasn't the _point_. It wasn't anyone's property, it was just a handy thing, a nice thing that people did that helped everybody out. And now it had been ruined, there weren't going to be any parts for experiments, pilots who were barely scraping by or kids with dreams anymore, because some jerk wanted to make a quick buck? One jerk had ruined it for everyone else, and there wasn't anything they could do about it?

Well, Krusche had decided that she wasn't going to put up with that. Especially when she had a handy Teru that owed her money to help her watch the bin and catch the bastard red-handed.

She'd been even more disgusted to find that no, it wasn't just someone trying to make a quick buck. It was one of the mechanics in town. And he wasn't even doing it just to sell the parts himself and make a profit, but because when the pilots could use the bin, that meant less business for him. Ruining it for everyone else hadn't just been a side effect of someone's selfishness, it had been the _goal_, all along.

She might have tied him up and let him dangle under her airship for a bit. She might have told every other pilot in town, and let the guy go knowing that the next time he showed his face in the airport, he'd have a bunch of armed pilots waiting for him. He might have abandoned his shop and run for the hills. No one would prove anything.

"Isn't there anything we can do?" Aurica asked Shurelia, as Krusche watched, leaning against a wall of the inn.

She hadn't realized it up until now, but Lyner's impractical generosity was kind of like that bin. He helped people out: he'd even give them the shirt off his back. So they helped him out, although Krusche personally wouldn't really mind if Lyner went around shirtless.

As long as people put parts in the bin, there would be parts there when they needed them. As long as people made sure Lyner didn't suffer too much for his generous nature, that generous nature would always be there to be taken advantage of.

It wasn't a very practical way to live, like the bin would have been no way to run a business, but it had worked for Lyner because he made a lot of things work out for other people. If she'd been asked before this morning, Krusche would have said that she thought Lyner needed to get a clue, but, really, she'd liked Lyner just the way he was all along, hadn't she? Otherwise she could have done something cruel and forced him to realize that most people were jerks and he had to look out for number one, but she hadn't, because she'd kind of liked Lyner the way he was. He was one of those helpful things that you took for granted.

And now Mir had taken advantage of that. She'd put a bomb in the bin instead of a part, _trying _to ruin it for everyone else, so that she could have an easier time dropping the other Wing of Horus and killing everyone else.

Krusche could have said that it was Lyner's fault for being so trusting and gullible. In hindsight, it must have been so easy for Mir, like taking candy from a baby, and Lyner was a grown-up, or at least he was supposed to be. It should have been his fault that he was this easy to trick, to take advantage of. He should have been more suspicious, because people were counting on him.

But the thing was, they counted on Lyner because he _wasn't _suspicious. He'd helped them without demanding payment up front, and that was why they all had decided to pay him back, decided that he was worth trusting.

The bin was a nice thing that you could only have if you counted on other people to be nice and not take advantage of it, and so was Lyner. It all worked out until someone, like Mir, decided to be a bastard. At that point, your options were to take it lying down or remove the bastard from the equation, the obstruction from your machine.

Shurelia shook her head. "Not right now, I'm afraid. Lyner and I need to return to Platina: I can't come with you if Mir's just going to use me as a spy. The rest of you will have to go on alone."

"Should I get the airship warmed up?" Krusche asked. Not that it had really had a chance to cool down: she'd been ferrying Radolf and the most trusted of his Church Knights to the Plasma Bell all night.

"Of course," Shurelia agreed. "The sooner we're back in Platina, the sooner… Oh." Oh dear. "You were going to take more reyvateils to the Plasma Bell, weren't you." Colonel Dist and his tower guardians were escorting a few down through the tower's interior and the circula teleporter, but when Mir might seize control of part of the tower's defenses and ambush them at any time? The church knights would need someone who knew what they were doing to calm down the Child of Light, if it came to that, so Krusche was supposed to fly down a second group of Platinan researchers immediately after taking Lyner's group to the Silver Horn. "That has to come first."

Aurica tried to argue, "But that will delay us by…" Even if it was only one trip, they'd be lucky if they only lost a full day.

"There's no alternative, I'm afraid. I can't gamble with…" Shurelia looked at the door meaningfully. Hopefully no one was spying, but who knew how thick the walls were? She couldn't name the Plasma Bell: if the lower worlders learned of what Mir had planned, it would cause a panic they could ill afford.

Honestly, if it weren't for what had happened last time, all the lives that had been lost fighting over…

Shurelia had tried to keep the fallen wing of Horus aloft: there had been no warning but she _was _the tower, she'd felt the fall. She'd known she couldn't sustain it indefinitely, but she'd hoped that as many people as possible could get to airships, _something_.

Ar Tonelico's cameras had watched with desperate hope… and Shurelia wished she could forget what she'd seen. The horror and despair of it had sapped the power of her song: she hadn't been able to buy even an hour.

Perhaps that was a mercy.

"I can't," Shurelia repeated herself, and it was an apology to the dead more than to Aurica. "If by some miracle you save the tower, then all will be well, but I can't take that risk."

"We can take a civilian airship to Nemo. Once there…" Ayatane stopped when Shurelia held up a hand to silence him.

"Don't discuss your plans in front of me, please. Even if you're right that Mir can't put you to sleep the way she did Lyner." Mir had written Ayatane to ensure that Shurelia wouldn't be able to detect or meddle with him: unless Mir decided to focus her time and energies on finding a way around that, the abilities that made it so difficult for the Knights of Elemia to keep Ayatane prisoner meant that Mir's only options were to let him run around loose or kill him. "Everyone, I'm placing Ayatane in charge of this mission." He knew more about what they would be facing than all of them put together, _Perhaps even me, _Shurelia thought wryly. "I'll do what I can to support you from the tower," but there were so many others that needed her protection. "Good luck."

* * *

"Are you serious?" Jack blanched.

Unfortunately, Ayatane was. "Tastiella sent a drone tower guardian to pick Lyner up, but that was when the Silver Horn's defenses were down. Krusche is flying Lady Shurelia's personal airship: it has her access codes. The Silver Horn won't allow any unidentified craft to get that close."

"Are you _sure _there isn't a route through the tower?" Misha asked again, her face almost green.

Ayatane nodded. "Not with the defenses active. The Silver Horn was constructed as a _weapon_. Mother as well. The security was designed to keep enemy agents, from Sol Cluster for example, from infiltrating it in order to sabotage it or steal her. They tried more than once: one of them got fairly far."

"Sol Cluster?" Aurica asked, then shook her head. This wasn't the time to ask about legends she'd come across in the Church's archives. If it was important, Ayatane would tell them. "But going along the outside of the tower: are you sure that's safe?"

"No, that's why only Jack and I should attempt it. The two of you should wait in the Crescent Chronicle. Lady Shurelia could have come with us, since she has her armor, but even if Lyner were well, I wouldn't let him attempt this. I'm a virus: if I fall, I can dematerialize. As a Teru, Jack is stronger than humans are, and, from the way Krusche designed his arm, once he locks his grip in place he won't have to worry about losing it." Ayatane had detailed tower maps in his memory banks, and the area around the Silver Horn and Crescent Chronicle was of particular interest to Mir. If they took five ropes with them, it could definitely be done.

"But that means you won't have any reyvateils with you," Misha pointed out.

"Yes, I know." That was a very good point, and the worst part of this plan. "I'd go by myself, so that no one else would be in danger," fighting powerful tower guardians without reyvateil support. "But someone needs to make it back with the crystal in case I… am not able. If we leave the ropes, the trip back along the outside of the tower could be managed by one person." The good news was, "At least Lyner made sure that we're well supplied with medicines and bombs," although he was thinking in terms of an all-reyvateil force, not an… Normally one would say an 'all-human' force, but neither he nor Jack was human. "But if you chose not to go along with this plan, I would understand. Hopefully, some other Teru might be willing to join us. I'm quite impressed with Lyra's ability to navigate the tower."

"Isn't there any way we could come?" Aurica asked.

"Yeah…" Misha hesitated. "…A blindfold?" she offered, or almost forced out, not quite tentatively but as though she _knew _this was a terrible idea but still felt compelled to make the effort.

"…Misha, do you really want to climb around the outside of the tower wearing a blindfold?" If Jack couldn't tell that she didn't really want to do this, he would have wondered if she'd gone nuts.

"No," of course not. The idea terrified her, because it was suicidal and she wasn't. "But I can't just stay behind! I have to go, especially if Lyner isn't."

"Run that by me again?"

"I'm Misha Arsellac Lune," Misha told him. "It's my family that's been imprisoning Mir. Tastiella can't go, Shurelia can't go, Leard and Lyner can't go: I at least have to go. Someone has to take responsibility for everything that's happened to Mir."

"There's no reason for you to-"

"Yes, there is!" Misha interrupted Ayatane. "I know why Aurica is the one that should sing the hymn: you're Mir's family and I'm one of the people that hurt her. Even if I was nowhere near as bad as the others, I'm still… I'm still part of the system that did that to her. The way Lyner didn't want to be part of the family that did this to me and mine." She straightened herself, raising her chin. Normally she didn't want to be adult, didn't want adult responsibilities like being forced to bear a child, but this was important. "If I'm not willing to put myself in danger for her, then why should she put herself in danger of being hurt again by trusting us? Because there are a lot more people on the tower than just you and your sister. I'm angry about what she did to Lyner, but… If I want her to see that it's possible to change, to be better than that, then I have to put my life where my song is. If I was willing to die to imprison Mir, then I should be a lot more willing to die to actually do something worthwhile! To put a stop to this! I don't want to sacrifice myself, but I don't want to abandon my responsibilities, either! Before this, there wasn't another way, but thanks to you and Aurica, there is one, and I'm going to fight for it!"

The force of her determination stunned Ayatane and Jack. It was Aurica whose voice finally broke the silence. "She's right. How can I sing that song either, if I haven't earned it? And, maybe… If I go to the place where they did this to her, I'll be able to understand her better." She clenched her hand over her heart and nodded. "There has to be a way." A way to save Mir, save everyone.

Perhaps it was Misha's imagination that she'd started to glow.

* * *

_Have you heard the crab bucket metaphor? Terry Pratchett used it in _Unseen Academicals_. That's basically what Shurelia saw, and as for the people who made the mistake of doing the right thing and flying down to help? Of course, this was after years of a very nasty genocidal war, so thankfully there weren't many private airships owned by people who'd do something that risky in order to save lives left – those kind of people had generally ended up volunteering, if their airships weren't conscripted. _

_Honestly, I really don't think it's weird at all that Shurelia has the death wish she demonstrates in the game, or the desire to cling to someone after centuries of everyone leaving her alone in the end. That's not weakness, that's being human. The fact that she's not a Broken Bird is strength. _

_Especially because she _is _a responsible person who cares about her people, meaning she always wishes she could have done more and blames herself for everything. It's _because _the tower has become such a better place under Shurelia's leadership that the moral codes have changed so much, so it's because she's done so well that she thinks she was such a bad person when she was younger._

_She's really her own worst critic and needs a hug and someone to tell her that she's awesome, really. I suppose I keep repeating that in the A/Ns because it's taking so long to get to that part in the fic, and by this point in the game she had Lyner, so I feel bad for stealing her cheerleader and then putting her through something more harrowing than the game events. In any case, Shurelia is an Airmetal Woobie. _

_Who needs a goddamn vacation. _


	30. Lighter Than a Feather

_I drew up an outline, but I was hoping to cover more than one chapter of the outline per physical chapter. So far, it seems like my initial estimates of how long each part would take were prettymuch right on the mark, though. Oh, if I only covered the plot points in the outline it probably would match up with my second set of estimates, but a lot of why this fic is because I love the characters and the way they go along, come together, trying to find ways to fix things and make the world a better place. So when Krusche, who expects money for lifesaving, informs me that she knows what 'commons' are and that it's less about money, more about proper _value, _I end up listening._

* * *

Misha glanced at the other two, but they didn't seem to have noticed anything unusual. She could tell that her words, and Aurica's, had affected them, though. They were looking at each other with the same sort of 'this _really _isn't a good idea but it has to be done' look that she must have had when she'd suggested blindfolding herself to climb to the Silver Horn, so she didn't freeze or panic.

She knew it wouldn't have worked, really, not when the wind would have whipped around the tower and she had something called an _imagination_. For once, it would have been handy if Bourd was right and she was just a machine – machines! "Maybe we can't borrow some of the tower guardians, because Mir could hack them, but what about Tenba?" They had machines.

"Too risky," Jack shook his head. "Do we really want something that lady built deciding to attack us when we're…" desperately hanging onto a ledge or pipe for dear life? Not that he said that: he didn't want to make this any harder on Misha than it was going to be.

"I can teleport more than just myself, but I need a target. If one of you fell, I could teleport to you, catch you, and rejoin the other, but if both of you fell I'd have to teleport to the Crescent Chronicle and start over."

"What do you mean, a target?" Jack asked.

"A reyvateil or a preset location. If you fell," Ayatane warned Jack, "I'd have to catch up with you and catch you the normal way, I'm afraid." Diving from the tower. "We'll both need parachutes." So they could try to adjust their falls.

"Wait a minute: if you were keeping Lyner in the Silver Horn, then how did you get him there?" Misha asked. Once Lyner was there, Ayatane could have teleported to him, but what about before that?

"There was a preset location there, but Mother blocked it." She had set up the presets in strategic locations for him in the first place. "Right now, it would be safer to avoid teleporting. Unless it's an emergency." Like someone about to fall off a tower.

Jack looked at him askance. "Do you think she could mess with it?" That didn't sound good.

"I don't know." Ayatane spread his hands helplessly. "I was created with these abilities, to use them. It is different for me because I'm a virus: a reyvateil can sing without knowing the first thing about how any of it works, and you can use that mechanical arm you were given without knowing how the mechanism works or how to repair it, even though it's a part of you now. As a virus, I'm…" Ayatane hesitated, not sure how to explain it, or that he wanted to, but it might be important, so the others could help figure out how they were going to get Aurica and Misha to the Silver Horn. "I'm made up of hymn code. Everything that makes me the way I am, from how I look to how I breathe," when he didn't need to breathe, or eat. Beta types could at least get energy and nutrients from food. "Had to be written out. So when I needed to learn about one of my abilities, I could read it."

Mother had left very good annotations, since she'd known that she would be asleep most of the time and her agent would have to fend for itself. "So I know what I'm capable of, but as for what Mir is capable of? Or… creative uses for my abilities? I'm not a genius with such things." Unlike Mother, Lyner, Krusche (who was _very _good with what she knew: he wondered what she'd be capable of if she'd been born before the rebellion)… Shurelia summoning that collar had been a surprise: something like that hadn't occurred to him, and Ayatane's first impression of Lady Shurelia had been from Mir's information, which said she wasn't very bright at all.

He had been made to be the clever one, the trickster: realizing that he was surrounding by so many people that were smarter than him wasn't very good for his ego. Cleverness was what he was _for, _in a very real sense. A pity none of them were here, because he was out of ideas, aside from roping each of the reyvateils to one of them for when their hands slipped.

_When_, not if, because reyvateils had been designed with poor grip strength. Poor _everything _strength. Misha was a beta type, but they didn't really have time for her to do exercises and try to build up some strength, although Ayatane knew exercises for that, from his training as a knight.

Misha was surprised. "Wow. Mir must be a good writer, huh." The way Claire wrote her own songs was impressive enough to Misha, but writing a whole person? You could _do _that?

"Well, I think so. I've read some of her books," downloaded them from the tower for spare moments and boring guard duty. "She named me after a character from her stories." Although where she'd gotten the name for that character was a long story.

"Is Aurica named after anyone?" Misha wondered. "Aurica?"

Aurica was so light, and quiet on her feet, that Misha hadn't noticed until now that she was heading for the door.

Aurica almost jumped, startled."Oh, I thought I'd go see when the next ferry was, and get tickets." She smiled apologetically. How silly of her not to tell them.

Radolf, Claire and maybe Lyner after seeing her cosmospheres, were the only ones who knew Aurica well enough to tell that she'd just made that up on the spot, but something made Misha say, "I'll come with you." She turned back to the other two. "I just don't know enough about the outside world, you know?" So she felt kind of useless just standing here. "I know: I'll ask Spica if she has any ideas. She'll know" Spica was the one who had taught Misha practically everything she knew about the world outside the Crescent Chronicle that hadn't come from Bourd or Lyner, and compared to how wrong Bourd was about reyvateils and how wrong Lyner had been about stuff like how funbuns were impossible to resist, Spica had quickly established herself as the wisest person Misha had ever met.

Which was probably why Spica had told the little girl with the big eyes so much for free.

"We should probably purchase equipment here: Tenba mounts expeditions inside the tower, so they should have most of what we need." Ayatane knew it wouldn't be of the same quality of Platina's ancient equipment (young knights and reyvateils always had the fear of the goddesses put into them about what would happen if they lost any of it), so they might need extra, especially since knowing how hard it would be for a tower guardian to, for example, cut the ropes, might be vital.

"I'll come with you," Jack volunteered, because he and Misha, not Ayatane, were the ones who were really in danger if any of it was substandard.

Aurica had already left, so Misha hurried after her. There was something about the way she walked, and Misha realized that even when she couldn't see Aurica in the crowds, she could still tell where she was.

When they reached the pier, Aurica didn't go to the ticket office but nimbly climbed out on some girders that jutted out over the abyss and stood there.

Misha wanted to ask what she was doing, but she didn't want to startle her by saying her name. What if she fell? So she just crept closer, up to the edge of the platform proper (since the girders were still there if she fell), close enough to see that Aurica had her hands clasped in front of her, eyes closed and head bowed. Like she was about to sing.

Oh, was that what Misha had felt? The gathering of emotion and song magic?

Singing the Chronicle Key _drained _Misha. It wasn't until she'd sung Purger (she'd been touched that even though Lyner didn't remember, he'd still kept her away from Bourd by having her sing it instead of Aurica) that she'd realized that singing a hymn was really _power_. She'd been controlling the tower, even if just halting one process. She'd been _stopping _Mir instead of having everything sacrificed to her.

As Misha thought that, Aurica raised her head. "Alright: I'm ready," she said, and stepped over the edge.

Misha _screamed, _"Aurica!" putting every ounce of her power as a pureblooded beta type behind it. Even though she knew that emotion alone wouldn't work song magic, she still screamed her terror for her friend to the tower. It wasn't that she was hoping that someone could do something, Mir or Ayatane would hear it and save their daughter, their sister: there was no thought in it at all, only emotion, as Misha ran forward and _dived_.

It was very stupid of her to close her eyes, instead of keeping them open to try to see Aurica, catch her and try to use a song magic, but if she'd kept them open, she might not have been able to do it. And she'd had to.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

It took Misha a moment to realize that the impact she'd felt wasn't something out of her nightmares, the ones she'd had since the flight from Platina to Em Pheyna when she was small. She hadn't even crashed into Aurica.

She'd been caught. By someone wearing armor.

She wasn't falling anymore.

"Are you alright, Lady Misha?"

"Aurica?" No, not quite. Misha still opened her eyes and looked up at her rescuer.

Concerned eyes looked down at her, and beyond them were spread grand white wings.

"You can _fly_?" If Misha hadn't been hanging on for dear life, she might have hit her, or at least the armor. Not hard, of course, but still.

This was Aurica's seraph armor, one of the modes Lyner had unlocked for her. In addition to granting reyvateils with cleared cosmospheres more powerful hymns, since their minds were stable and they could be trusted with that power, the tower would also grant them the ability to assume the images of their cosmosphere avatars, with the different feelings and hence powers those personae had.

Misha was jealous. "None of mine can fly… Wait! My shinobi costume!" It was stronger than she was, faster, far more graceful and agile: if they could actually take on the _physical _abilities of their avatars? "I bet I could make the climb in that!"

"Actually, Lady Misha, Lady Aurica can't fly." That smile was almost the same, but not quite. "I can." Those wings beat once, even though they clearly weren't what was actually holding them up, and the two of them began to rise up over the man-made island.

The tower itself was man-made, but there was a reason the Origins were considered goddesses. The towers were relics of an age of myth: what Tenba had done, creating land through the work of human and Teru hands, had an entirely different significance. Bourd and Falss had tried to reclaim the past, attain its power through its injustices: President Ayano's Tenba was building a future, Misha realized as she looked down, mesmerized.

And Claire: living the way she wanted, changing the world, little by little, with bravery and the power of song – not song magic, not the tower, but _her _song?

It made sense that Aurica could summon her cosmosphere avatars, now that Misha thought about it. Lyner could because he had something like Mir's access, and Aurica had a clone of Mir's account. That might have made her shudder, thinking of more Mirs running around, but Shurelia had mentioned that she thought Mir prided herself on control too much for that.

Except wait, hadn't Aurica's cosmospheres all been solved, just like hers? So why was her level seven still alive instead of absorbed into Aurica, the complete person? Why it was here wasn't the question: _that _was.

"We have somewhere to go," Seraph Aurica told Misha, as they flew onward. "You'll come with us, won't you?"

"Are you kidding? There's no way I'm letting you leave me behind!" was Misha's answer.

Feeling the power of song all around her, seeing that evidence that even humans could find ways to keep themselves from falling into the Grathnode Inferia, into the sea of hatred (so like Mir's) that lay beneath them, Misha followed the seraph's gaze to their destination.

And didn't close her eyes.


	31. Cardinal Virtue

_The word 'Gospel' actually means 'good news.' Finding out that there actually is a god that loves all of us, that will always forgive us for our faults but does believe that we can do better, that wants to help us, that doesn't care about race or anything else, just _people?_ Unconditional, universal love is pretty sweet._

_My apologies for missing last week: I blame my health and Anime Expo._

_The 'tinkering with stuff' thing is a reference to the music boxes. Also, Aurica's atypical uniform, Al Revis levels of atypical._

* * *

When the Seraph finally landed, with a great beat of those wings even though Krusche would have pointed out there was absolutely no need for it, Misha wasn't surprised to see two more Auricas waiting for them.

As they'd approached, Misha had only been able to make out white and light blue, topped with pale gold, but the colonels had been putting both of them through their paces, so she knew what Aurica's level nine and EX level costumes looked like. It was kind of a relief that the devil Aurica wasn't here, since even though you never asked about someone's cosmospheres, Lyner was easy to read and she'd gathered that one had given him a pretty hard time. Well, what did you expect from something obviously evil?

She bet her levels seven and eight had been pretty frustrating too, she bet, but those levels always were. At least hers hadn't actually killed him in her cosmosphere? She'd heard that the scary colonel's level six held the record for that.

There was a rule that you weren't supposed to ask divers much about what they saw in your cosmosphere, because then people would blame themselves for what happened when the entire point of cosmospheres was that they were what the person kept bottled up so they wouldn't hurt anyone.

Misha knew that she had been really angry, with not just Lyner but the world. She knew that was childish, so she'd tried to ignore those emotions. Which meant they must have ended up in her cosmospheres. So she was proud of herself, a little, for not killing him. It meant that even the worst and most shameful parts of herself hadn't been all that bad after all.

After she got her footing and the seraph let go of her, Misha looked at Aurica's level nine and wondered why she looked like an angel.

Obviously the seraph looked like an angel, with the wings and everything, but Aurica's level nine didn't have wings. Still, while the seraph radiated an aura of power, caring and determination to help people no matter what that rivaled Lyner's, Aurica's Ceremony radiated _holiness_.

Not just a singing maiden, not a priestess sealing away evil like in the stories Misha had used to focus and sing Purger. A holy maiden.

Shurelia was a _goddess _and she didn't look like this.

"You're me?" Misha heard a little behind her, and turned to see Aurica, the real Aurica, standing where the Seraph had landed. "I know this isn't a trick, but it's still… hard to believe."

"We know better than that," the other Aurica, Aurica's inner self said, smiling.

It was a smile that said that she knew something. Not an annoying 'I know something you don't know' smile, but one so full of joy that it couldn't be contained. That made her so happy she wanted to shout and hug the world. To sing and dance with the joy of it, to share this joy with everyone who sorrowed and everyone who didn't. To embrace all that lived.

Aurica couldn't help returning it, the same joy lighting up her eyes. "It really is that simple."

"What is?" Misha asked.

Aurica, both of them, turned to her. "Love," inner Aurica said simply. "You know it too, don't you?"

Yes, she knew what love was, but it wasn't simple. "It's why I sang." Or part of why. But that had been a mistake.

"And also why you stopped," the inner Aurica pointed out.

"Um… didn't I stop because Bourd kidnapped me?" Misha realized that it was kind of in bad taste to say something like that to sort of change the subject when this was where Bourd had been tortured… Wait, was that a grave?

She could totally see Lyner digging graves, even for Bourd's men, but if that was a grave, why was the other Aurica dancing on it? Kind of… happily twirling around?

"Why didn't you go back?" The inner Aurica reminded her that, "Shurelia might have been able to make another hymn crystal. Shouldn't your own safety have come first, when Teru could have gotten the crystal back? Except it wasn't your safety that came first, was it? You were worried about your daughter, right?"

Misha froze.

She hadn't thought of that, she wanted to protest. Or had she?

If she had gone back to the Crescent Chronicle from Tenba, recovering the crystal would still have been important, yes, but the first thing would have been to age her back up and induce her to form a child. One that would have looked exactly like her, been another pure-blooded beta type. Third generations wouldn't last more than a few months, singing _that _hymn, even with all the diquility in the world. Her daughter.

She would never have been able to play with her, just like Misha only remembered her own mother's face because she saw it in the mirror. Then, in a few years, her daughter would have been sent to Leard. Or Lyner. She'd hoped that it would be Lyner by then.

Except Lyner wouldn't have been able to be nice to her daughter, would he? The harsh training and terrifying darkness were necessary: Leard hadn't _enjoyed _doing it. In hindsight, that she'd _wanted _Lyner to be the one to have to do something like that made her wince.

If she'd gone home, the world would have been safer. She would have been safe from Bourd.

She'd been terrified of growing up: she remembered it now. She _could _remember it now, instead of having to force it from her mind, trample it down into her cosmospheres, so that she could sing the hymn without being distracted. Because if she'd been able to sing what was in her heart, it wouldn't have been about protecting the world and Lyner from Mir.

She'd thought it was just selfishness, that kept her from going right home. Defended it to herself by saying that it was her duty to keep Mir sealed, and that meant recovering the crystal no matter what.

As soon as she went home, Misha would have had a daughter. Just like her. Who would have to go through someone Misha wouldn't wish on anyone else. It was one thing to do it herself. She'd decided to do it, hadn't she? But to force something like that on someone (the way Misha had it forced on her?) was wrong.

Yet, how was it any less wrong to do to Misha what Misha had been willing to risk Bourd to save her hypothetical daughter from? "It wasn't about her, it was about me. I felt bad for not wanting to do it myself, but if I thought about saving someone else, that seemed…" Ok. It was okay to object on someone else's behalf, but not her own.

"Misha… It's not wrong to love yourself. You're a person, just like everyone else, and everyone should be loved. When we don't love ourselves, when we don't trust ourselves…" Aurica looked down at her hands. "I was afraid of being like Bourd. I knew, inside, that I had all this power, even if was just the power everyone has, to do things with their own two hands. Bourd killed enough people with them, and I have song magic. I knew that I was angry, that there was a part of me that _wanted _to hurt people, because of everything I'd lost. So the reason I was so weak, that I thought I was worthless and couldn't do anything, was _because _I was doing something. I sealed my power away from myself because I wanted to protect people. Even from me. I knew what it was like to be hurt, to lose precious people, and I didn't want anyone else to have to suffer that. I tried to become the holy maiden, to help people, without power because I believed that if I had power, I might become like Bourd." How to put this? "I wasn't exactly wrong."

"Aurica, you're kidding, right? You're nothing like Bourd."

"She is," the dancing Aurica said, then stopped after a final spin. "That's why she recreated me, to remind her."

The gowned one nodded. "Bourd wanted the power of reyvateils. He thought we weren't real people, that _no one _mattered as much as he did. His goals, his pleasure. He loved himself too much and didn't love other people enough. Selfishness is a part of love." She looked at the real Aurica. "If we try to love others without selfishness and power, then we might not have enough power to help them. If we don't take care of ourselves, we won't be able to look after anyone. And we need to remember that power can be misused. If we assume that we're in the right and stop watching ourselves for the bad kind of selfishness, then we can hurt others without realizing it. We know that there's a lot of pain and anger in us, Aurica. That we're afraid of losing so many precious people, this precious world. Those emotions themselves are born of love: we loved our parents, and that's why losing them hurt us. Love is a powerful thing, isn't it?" That smile was for Misha as well. "But emotions are power, the power of songs, and power can be misused. We could crush things without realizing it, if we aren't careful. If we don't keep in mind that we hold this precious world in our arms."

Misha wanted to make a quip about being careful not to crush or drop it, but it would be kind of redundant. That was the point that Aurica was making.

Misha had held the fate of the world in her hands too, hadn't she? If she had died, if she had denied them her death and her daughter's life, Mir would have escaped and more than half the world would have died. She'd had a lot of power. It hadn't seemed that way, because she was more a victim of it than someone who got to use it herself, but she could have. The fact she'd been too much of a good person to do it didn't mean she couldn't have held the world ransom, refused to sing unless they brought her dokkoi sets and everything she wanted in that gilded cage.

"So, I was recreated in this form, and I'll be your shoulder devil, like she's your shoulder angel." The dancing girl pointed up at the seraph, who flew watchfully overhead, protecting them. "As long as you listen to me, remember I exist, you can be pretty sure that you aren't abusing your power, even through carelessness."

Aurica took a deep breath and nodded. "Stop dancing on their graves. I know I've wanted to do it, but it's still wrong." That wasn't even Bourd's grave, for one thing. And even if it had been, it still wasn't right. "They're people too." If everyone had it in them to be Bourd, then everyone had it in them to be Lyner. It was about the choices people made. And about love. If they'd had someone to guide them, like she'd had Claire, Radolf and Lyner, then they could have been good people. Even if she couldn't love what they'd done, she should still love them because they were people. Love and mourn the people they could have been. "If I accept this power, that's going to be my job, isn't it?"

The pure Aurica looked surprised. "It's everyone's job, they just don't fully understand it. They aren't fully self-aware, self-actualized." That was much of what cosmospheres were for, but even if someone knew it subconsciously, they might not be consciously aware of it.

"This love will make my songs _really _powerful, won't it?" A reyvateil that loved the world and wanted to make it a better place: could there be any more dangerous a reyvateil than one that drew on that infinite power, infinite love? "Mir hated humans, so she couldn't sing for them. But if I'm singing with power equal to hers, except I'm singing for _everyone?" _For Claire, who had tried to raise her. For Radolf, who had believed in her and blamed himself, never her, when he hadn't been able to coax her true power out of the shell she'd sealed it away in. For Lyner, who had shown her that there were good people in the world, that even a total stranger could find her worth loving. That total strangers were _worth _loving, that it was always worth it to help someone in need.

If she hadn't saved Lyner that day, none of this would have happened.

Just as the world was a place where people could do terrible things to perfect strangers, the world was also a place where kindness made a difference. Bourd had destroyed her faith in power, in people, and what they could be used for. She'd turned to the church to try to restore it, to try to find a way to get power to make the world a good place without hurting people, and now she knew that she should just believe in herself. Because people were good. Even herself.

"The power to save the world," said the seraph, who represented goodness, "and make it a better place for everyone." That would make her happy.

"The power to rule the world," said the alchemist, who represented power, "and make it a better place for me." And those other people would benefit too.

"The power to live in this world," said Aurica's heart, "and live with myself, together with everyone else."

"A holy maiden sings with the power of a goddess." The seraph reminded her that, "We have full access to Ar Tonelico: we earned it, by helping Lyner help us reach level nine. He couldn't have done it without us, and we couldn't have done it without someone's help." It didn't have to be Lyner: if Radolf had known how to get through to them, he could have done it years ago. Had Lyner been able to because he understood the fear of abusing his power?

"A holy maiden… Oh, the _possibilities._" The alchemist grinned. So much potential. So much power in their hands, for good or ill.

"We have this power because of everyone." Claire. Radolf. Lyner. Mir. "So we'll use it for everyone."

That power, that _joy_, enough love for the world to rewrite it, radiated from the four of them, and Misha knew she must have that power as well.

Aurica was right: it was _frightening_. With all that power came the responsibility for using it right. If there was something she could do, and she didn't? Or… Still, not using it, choosing to do nothing: wouldn't that be just as bad? It was a less terrifying a choice, but it was still a choice.

Could she really sit by and do nothing when someone attacked that clueless kid that had been trying to do something for her and hadn't really had any idea how? He'd been mean sometimes, forcing funbuns on her, but that had just been, well, how he was, and he'd been trying so hard to do something, insisting there had to be a way so hard that it had been nice, even if… Falss.

Bourd had been a bastard to Aurica and a jerk to her. He'd been mean, but she'd always have to be a bit grateful to him for rescuing her. He'd done her a huge accidental favor. Twice, really. Falss, on the other hand, had encouraged Aurica but just to get her possessed. But he'd done that to try to restore reyvateil power, hadn't he?

Jade had said once that his mother had died suddenly, when he was very young. That was about the normal age for a third generation reyvateil to die on the wings of Horus, but Platinan reyvateils usually lived longer, since they had more reyvateil genes. Still, genetics was mix and match: which genes people got from their parents was the luck of the draw, and his mother had been dealt a poor hand. A mostly human hand. So she'd suddenly started wasting away at twenty-nine, when a beta-type that wasn't singing Chronicle Key would have made it a few centuries.

Had he done it because he was angry at her for abandoning him, and thought on some level, the levels humans had instead of Cosmospheres, that if he controlled reyvateils they couldn't leave? Had he thought that if he got his hands on a beta type, he could find some way to upgrade all reyvateils, or at least introduce more pure reyvateils into the gene pool, so the tragedy wouldn't repeat itself?

Falss had done all that and he was just a human who knew a few things about the tower. Misha was a pure-blooded beta type, and she'd learned about the world from Spica so fast, so she knew she wasn't dumb, if she said so herself. If Falss had done it, she could do it, if she tried.

Except she couldn't take over the church, because Aurica was going to. Everyone knew it.

Aurica was going to save Mir and be a shining light that would spread joy and love to all the tower: seeing this, seeing all the sides of her, Misha could believe it.

At first she wondered if she was feeling jealous, but once she thought about it, there was nothing wrong with feeling this way. If Aurica could save the world, she could, too. She _should_. Aurica could give sermons and so on, but Misha could sing, when all of this was over. To make this a better world.

When what they wanted to do was make the world a better place, then being determined not to let Aurica outdo her was actually a good thing. If that selfishness spurred her on to live out her dreams and show people that they could achieve their own.

Aurica held her hand over her heart, feeling her emotions. "It's so important. I still don't know if I can trust myself with it." With this power, with this love, with the world. "But… as long as I _don't _trust myself, as long as I remember how important this is, I think… I believe it will be alright." So she raised her chin up and focused.

The avatar of Aurica's true self, all the levels of her heart that had been mended, accepted and become one again began to glow, revealed as a million points of light. Fireflies? Stars? Thoughts? Lives and possibilities? They swirled around her, vanishing into her, as the other two, Aurica's guards, the parts of her that always watched and made sure that everything she loved was safe, stood as witness.

Three-lobed gold ornaments appeared in her hair. They seemed familiar to Misha, although she couldn't place them. Gauntlets instead of gloves, delicate but still able to block blades, like the ceremonial sword at her waist.

_Lady Shurelia_, Misha finally realized, watching the new costume appear. _She looks like Lady Shurelia. And something else._

Finally, Aurica opened her eyes. She frowned a little, looking down at herself. "This isn't the…"

"It's not the traditional regalia-" the seraph began apologetically.

"-it's _your _regalia," the alchemist finished firmly. "I may have borrowed some of the design from Metafalss," she admitted. "We've always liked tinkering with stuff. You can change it later, Holy Maiden Aurica."

"No," she said. "This will do for now." She nodded, determined, then looked at Misha. "Let's go save Mir."

"Right." What more needed to be said?


	32. Faith

_My apologies for the lateness: this chapter has given me a _lot _of trouble._

_This chapter is the equivalent of Lyner's conversation with Tastiella, and Lyner cut the Gordian knot by giving an incredibly good summation of why, 'the enemy is fear: we think that it is hate, but it is fear,' as Gandhi put it, prettymuch kicks off with the fact that all fear is derived from the unknown and basically concludes that wars happen because humans are intellectually lazy and somehow think that putting the work in to understand each other is too hard and annoying while wars are simple and easy. I was very impressed by the game actually showing that Lyner was right: refusing to think about Tastiella's question and Mir's reasons and simply choosing violence nets the bad ending._

_Aurica certainly isn't dumb, and in fact we're informed that she's _very _well-read and knowledgeable by the standards of the lower world, but that's still the lower world. And knowing information isn't quite the same as being able to analyze it, much less come up with a new concept based on it. So, obviously, it would be very OOC for her to just repeat Lyner's speech in her own words, and I needed to come up with a conversation that would convince Tastiella under such different circumstances._

_Also, while Shurelia is an origin reyvateil, her dialogue reveals that she's quite a different life form. Most reyvateils are born. Shurelia and a few other staff members of both towers in the first two games seem to have been _built_. The best way to explain a lot of stuff without discarding basic principles of cause and effect is that the towers and origin reyvateils were created for a purpose very different from the role they ended up fulfilling when the Inferia hit. _

_The origin of Chronicle Key is my own invention: I thought it appropriate on several levels._

_Edit: Dammit... IRL, I have a terrible memory for names. Normally it doesn't affect fictional characters, because fiction is my particular obsession. However, in this fic, I keep getting Leard, Bourd and sometimes Falss messed up, and no matter how many times I proofread, I keep finding stupid mistakes along those lines. Which is very bad when I'm trying to make points involving those characters. Writing Chronicle Key when I mean Crescent Chronicle and Harmonica for Flute is new, though. I am le headdesk. _

* * *

As they approached the Silver Horn, they realized that there was a figure there waiting for them on the mooring dock that was the only entrance. It was Misha that realized it was, "Granny?"

After Seraph Aurica put Misha down, she landed and transformed back into Aurica. "Lady Tastiella?" What was the proper mode of address for someone that the Church should consider a demigoddess? It was now Aurica's job to make decisions like that, after all. Lyner called Shurelia just, "Lady Shurelia," and so did most of Platina, but they were her apostles, after all. Even if Shurelia wouldn't mind, it might be a little overly familiar. She deserved to be honored, for what she did for all of them.

And so did Tastiella, who had spent all this time guarding Mir for their sakes.

She looked more than a little surprised, but not in a bad way. "My, I haven't heard of anyone using their powers as a reyvateil to fly without singing since little Frelia." Who had been able to do the most outlandish things by singing inside her heart, according to Shurelia. Using the power of her own feelings, using her own mind to compile them and send them to the universe without any need for a tower, not for small things like that. There was a reason the researchers had wiped all data on the project after shipping her off to Metafalss: imagine if Mir had been able to create more like her!

"It's sort of like a song magic," Aurica sort of explained. "It's not a spell either: is there a term for the costumes and other things like that? How they work?" How they materialized?

Tastiella smiled. "Hmm, I do believe you're talking about a function call." Ah, so that was it, then. It was something of a relief: if Mir's daughter had unlocked powers similar to Frelia's, then Mir might be able to do the same. The Crescent Chronicle could never hold someone who had walked through walls, like a little cat.

"A 'call.'" Calling on the power of her cosmospheres through the tower. She nodded: that did sound right.

"I suppose," that worked. For the lower world, for a world that had buried most of the truth of its past and technology. "But why are you here, without any guardians?"

"To find Mir's hymn crystal," Misha told her.

"The one that contains her love for her parents. Ayatane that it would work better than Chronicle Key, but I think…"

"Yes, it might need to be sung along with Chronicle Key," they'd need to have Misha make two daughters instead of one, "but a hymn based on her own innermost feelings would certainly be able to reach them." They could remind Mir of how, once, she had loved humans. How pointless it was to kill them like this.

If they could sap Mir's will to fight? Make her _want _to sleep forever? "Do you know what this means, Misha? Eventually, the Star Singers might not be necessary anymore!" Tastiella's long vigil could end. Not now, no. Now that Mir had showed her hand and they knew that she could create sentient viruses, posed even more danger, they had to be _certain _she stayed asleep all the time until they were _certain _she wouldn't rise again.

She and Flute had been forced to decide that Misha would have to have two daughters. When the Lune line only had one member, their death would end it all. Bourd had proven that even though they hadn't wanted to have a backup Star Singer, hadn't wanted to force twice as many young reyvateils to go through the training and sing their lives away, it had to be done.

Yet this was hope, real hope, that someday their suffering might end.

"Eventually?" Aurica asked, puzzled.

"It will probably take a few centuries," Tastiella acknowledged sadly. "The people who created her tried to break her spirit, make her aware of her own powerlessness." Helplessness. "Her will is strong, and armored against despair. She believes that destroying humanity will bring peace for reyvateils: it is her only hope. She will resist having it taken away. It will not be easy to force her to surrender it, no matter how powerful the feelings in this hymn are."

Aurica frowned. "But… Who said anything about Chronicle Key?"

"Yeah," Misha agreed. "It would be a really bad idea to remind her of that." Even though Misha wanted to help sing Harmonious.

"I want to use this song to give her back her hope, not take it away." That would be just… just _wrong_. "This is the hymn she made with all of her hopes and her love! You can't just, just trample on that!"

"Do you know what Chronicle Key is?" Tastiella asked her, unruffled by Aurica's heartfelt words.

Aurica and Misha looked at each other: even Misha didn't know what she was talking about. If there was more to it than just a hymn to force Mir to stay asleep by saying how waking up and being a part of the world would only bring suffering, no one had ever told its singer.

"It's my hope for peace," Tastiella told her. "My hope that… Mir suffered so much. The people who should have loved her only saw her as an object to be used, because of all the power she had. At least Shurelia's father loved her, I'm sure of it. Perhaps his true love was his dream, but she was a part of that dream." A tool he'd built, unlike Mir who had been actually born: one of the researchers had been her surrogate mother. But a tool he'd created for a grand purpose, not just as a weapon of mass destruction. "The avatar of his hopes. Mir… they feared her, for her power, from the day she was born. She wasn't a tool they wanted to breathe life into, she was a person they intended to reduce to a tool. To deny that she ever could be or could have been anything more. Even when she rebelled, she fought for the other reyvateils. It wasn't simply about hate, she wasn't a selfish person. She didn't start out, she wasn't born a killer. She… she was never what they wanted. It was so very, very unfair," Tastiella said, her voice and eyes distant, gazing back into the past.

To a time when she'd been young, and idealistic, and, "I believed in her. Not in Reyvateilia, but if you ever heard her speak… Many of us believed in her, humans as well, before… We discovered that she'd been serious. She'd told us all along, you see, that she thought there could be no peace with humanity, that she intended to wipe them out, but she worked to make things so much _better _for reyvateils. We didn't really believe that it was possible, that someone like her would really…" And then the conditions in the labor camps, the amount of workers that died there doing strenuous labor that would have killed a third-generation reyvateil within a week. No conditions made for their safety, no rest…

Mir had those too young, old and infirm shipped off to other camps, and then Shurelia had gotten past her defenses, finally. Gotten footage. Found out what had happened to those Mir didn't have a use for. "It was so hard to believe, even for many of us who were already fighting her, because replacing a reyvateil underclass with a human underclass was no improvement." The Apostles had fought for equality, and since the humans had refused to tolerate the terrible things that were being done to reyvateils, the reyvateils had refused to tolerate the terrible things Mir had done to humans. "It was… so hard to believe." A lot of Mir's army simply hadn't, and even some of those who knew the truth and didn't believe it was right had stayed instead of deserting because this was _Mir_. Who had saved so many of them.

"So Chronicle Key is my wish, you see. That she will finally have peace. That she won't be forced to kill anymore, simply because she has power and…" Tastiella shook her head, spread her hands helplessly.

Misha's hands covered her mouth, not because she wanted to hide shock but because she felt _sick_. She could see it now, in the crystal. Now that she knew what she was looking at. Tastiella's wish for Mir's suffering to end, Tastiella's compassion: how had it been perverted into the Chronicle Key she'd sung, and her mother before her? A song that didn't soothe, but smothered, a song of slow death, a song of helplessness and _poison_?

"I want to use it to restore her hope," Aurica said, and there was no hesitance in it at all. She wasn't suggesting or asking for Tastiella's approval. This was what she was going to do. This was her wish.

Shocked out of her memories, even though it didn't show on her face, Tastiella needed some time to compose a reply to that. The platform suddenly grew darker, a cloud drifting in front of the sun, and she feared it was an omen even though she knew it wasn't. "If you restore her hope," she said, slowly, "She will fight harder. We won't be able to keep her imprisoned with Chronicle Key much longer as it is. You may have decided to help us, and Ayatane is a good boy, but now that she has invented the process, she can make more. She may already have done so. If you restore her hope, if you reignite her passion, if you remind her what she has been fighting for? If you remind her of how her parents… those _people," _who didn't deserve that title, "destroyed her hopes, she will become her old self again. Chronicle Key really has helped," the deaths hadn't been for nothing: that was all that let her endure this, that let her watch them die. "She's not as fierce as she used to be. She hasn't… She would have crushed us, if she was her old self. If she'd waited, created an army of her new viruses." If she was thinking clearly, if she had her old drive. "If you try this, and fail, you will have handed her a weapon that could have defeated her. You will have made her a hundred times more dangerous." The tower, as it was then, had barely survived Mir. Now?

"Maybe," Aurica acknowledged. "But… Didn't she want to just be able to live together with humans, and with her family, back then? Isn't that the reason for all of this? You're right: I think she forgot that. She buried her compassion so that she could be strong. I, after Bourd, I buried my strength. Because I was afraid of hurting people. Because I knew what it was like to be bullied by the strong. I know, I _know_ that she knows that too. She knows what it's like to be hurt. She doesn't really want to hurt anyone, not deep down: Lyner's right, that's the only reason my brother's still alive. So yes. I do want to reawaken the old Mir. I want to help her be strong again, strong enough to _try_. To try to reach for what she always wanted. You want her to give up: I don't. Isn't it because she gave up on humanity that she started trying to kill them? Just… you can't just give up on people, even if you think they're evil. It's even worse to not even try in the first place because you think someone is definitely evil, or just a tool. Didn't all of this happen because they didn't see her as a person? They didn't _listen _when she tried to show them her feelings? Mir knows that what she's doing is wrong," Aurica said, and there was no doubt at all there.

"I haven't suffered anywhere near as much as she had, but no one who got angry in the first place because people weren't being treated like people… She has to know this is wrong, or else she wouldn't have rebelled. It's just the same as what her parents tried to do to her. Well… not as evil." At least she wasn't trying to brainwash humans into tools, slave fighters and labor. Like what Bourd had wanted to do to Misha and those other reyvateils. "I made a choice once. I gave up something important, something I shouldn't have: my power and belief in myself. She gave up her happiness and her belief in other people. Because of everything that's happened, everything I've learned, I was able to believe in myself again, and become strong. So I won't give up. I'll show her that there are other people worth believing in. That other people will try to help her. That she doesn't have to give up half of herself just to survive. That it's okay. Because I have my friends, and I know they'll tell me, or stop me, if I do anything evil with my power. And she has a family now, and we have friends, that will stop anyone who tries to hurt her." Until Mir could realize that she really didn't have anything to fear from humans anymore. Not even Shurelia could stop her. So she didn't have to be afraid to trust people anymore. She could afford to be a little vulnerable, enough to let people in. She could afford a little trust, enough to have friends and family.

Trust was a weakness, yes: what Mir had done to Lyner had proven that. But it was also strength. A reyvateil's hands couldn't defend them, but their songs could move heaven and earth to summon them to the reyvateil's defense.

Aurica realized that Mir had become so convinced that reyvateils were powerless, become convinced that she was a weapon, that she'd started thinking like a sword. Started thinking that the world wouldn't answer her, so her only power came from herself. Even when she'd had an entire army that believed in her, she hadn't let them in. She'd thought it was just kill or be killed, since she couldn't trust humans.

She hadn't trusted the people like Tastiella, either, so Mir had to know that reyvateils weren't any different from humans.

"I think… a hero is someone who uses their power to protect people. So Mir could have been a hero. But she gave up her compassion. Closed her heart to what people were like and what they wanted, and a someone who doesn't listen can only be a monster or a tyrant. But I know that's not what she wanted to be. Not if she made a hymn like this. She has to know this is wrong. She knows there's another way, she just thinks that it's closed to her. I won't use that hymn to slam that door in her face, and you're wrong: what if singing it along with Chronicle Key just made her more angry? More aware of how evil the world is? I want to use that hymn to remind her that that door is always open, and it's not her fault her parents wouldn't walk through it."

"…You want to…" Tastiella's mouth stayed open a little, even after her voice trailed off, as though some word, some wonderous thought was there on her tongue, and yet she was hesitating to let it go. She let it linger there, tasting it, wondering at it.

Hope. That was what it felt like. A way forward. "When you find it, come to the Crescent Chronicle. I'll open the door for you," was what she said in the end.

"Granny… Are you crying?" Misha stepped forward, wanting to reach out and comfort her, but she didn't know if that would help. Especially since she did know that her arms would go right through Tastiella.

"I'm not." She couldn't make the excuse that there was something in her eye, not when she hadn't had real eyes for so very, very long. "Don't worry about me, Misha. I've lived a long life." And now one of the many, many star singers she'd watched might outlive her. "You shouldn't worry about me, not when I've caused you so much pain. I've forced you to do what I couldn't." She'd been losing that hope that Mir could find peace and rest, end the war even as she made that hymn, hadn't she? Was it her hopelessness, her despair, that had crept into it? That had sapped the wills and lives of its singers, not just Mir's struggles? "I'm so sorry." She smiled, not because she was happy but because saying that was so pathetically inadequate and she knew it.

"Granny… Thank you. For letting us do this. I've never hated you. You and Lyner: you kept me company." Even if she hadn't been able to talk any more than Hama could, since it would have distracted Misha, at least her appearances and the ocarina had shown Misha that someone _cared_. "So… I'll make sure that we get it, and this works, for your sake. You, Mir, me: we'll all be free." So don't be sad, okay?

"Misha…" Tastiella raised a hand to her cheek. There was nothing to feel there, but she'd felt a phantom sensation, and she knew a tear would have fallen if this was still a real body that cried tears. She hadn't felt this before, not in all the years since she'd given up her body. "Little Misha."

Misha's arms wrapped around where she stood carefully, making the effort even though there was no body there to hug, and Tastiella's eyes closed, so she could hear Misha breathe (still alive), so she could imagine she felt it.

Aurica closed her own eyes and _wished_, as hard as she could, that the two of them would find the happiness they, and so many others, had once needlessly given up on.


	33. Those We Believe In

_My notes for this chapter contained an admonition to, "Write some damn battle scenes," but in the interests of getting this done before another three weeks go by… My apologies, other projects have been shiny at me. _

_According to the Ar Tonelico visual book, Ayatane's 'vanish and reappear elsewhere' thing is also a Teru Tribe ability: some of them can do it, if they give up their bodies. This explains why Lyra can go gather stuff in all those places. I'm disappointed that she isn't a Little Miss Badass scaling the tower on her own. It's sad that the supplementary material keeps giving less credit to the characters than the game itself does._

_Honestly, I'm disappointed with the visual book. Practically all the art for the first two games in here (and there's way too little art for those games) can be found in the unlocked extras when you beat the games. So I'd recommend just getting it by playing the games, unless you really want to have it in physical book form. You'll get more art/larger art, and this way you'll have played Ar Tonelico 1. The one piece of art I didn't recognized was a young!Lyner, and I'd think I would have remembered a more-adorable-than-usual Lyner, despite how bad my memory is these days. Since the game extras also contain hymns, I would say that young Lyner might be the only really valid reason to buy this thing. There's a certain page that sums up 1/3 of what is wrong with _Ar Tonelico 3.

* * *

Misha and Aurica barely managed to cover their ears in time after the alchemist Aurica, who was now expecting to be called Marlone, threw a bomb they didn't recognize. While grinning, very broadly.

"…Maybe you should stick to smaller bombs," the seraph pointed out, finally landing. She'd jumped up to spread her wings over Aurica and Misha to make sure none of the ancient pipes over their heads were jarred loose and fell on them.

"Maybe all these tower drones here should do some actual upkeep on this place." Weren't they supposed to be for maintenance as well as defense?

"Well, it _is _an ancient forbidden weapon. Maybe it's for the best that it's falling apart." That was the seraph's opinion. Especially since so much suffering had been caused by it long before it was ever _used_.

"Maybe it should be helped along." Marlone knelt and started trying to pull something rather large out of her handbag.

"That's not a bomb, that's one of the power generators!" The ones Lyner had grathmelded from ancient plans, in case any other systems had started to fail from lack of power while Shurelia slept. The plans used to create the generators the tower itself ran on!

"Exactly!" Marlone didn't care how reinforced this place was, because it was supposed to be able to withstand attack. This'd take care of it. "Think how much better Mir will feel once there's nothing left of this place but falling wreckage."

"…" The seraph looked thoughtful, touching the sword she had at her side. "Not while we're in here. And we should ask Krusche to make sure none of it will fall on anyone." Get the airship pilots out of the way. "Lady Shurelia as well." She looked at Lady Aurica for confirmation.

Aurica nodded, adjusting one of the white ornaments in her hair. "Thanks, that's a really good idea."

"…You know you're complimenting yourself, right?" Misha asked.

Aurica blinked at her. "Why should I be rude to anyone, even to myself? That was part of what I was doing wrong before." Admiring others for things and ignoring her own accomplishments, because she hadn't valued herself she hadn't valued then, and so she'd let herself become convinced she was worthless. What some of the church knights had thought was modesty had really just been making herself feel small.

Aurica knew that Misha still had some of the same problem, because Misha was still realizing that she'd been responsible for saving the world for several years now, even though she'd felt forced into it. Being forced into it didn't mean that she didn't deserve any credit. Still, probably the best way for Misha to realize that she could accomplish things was for her to accomplish more things. Like fighting their way through the Silver Horn to get the crystal and save Mir, as well as the rest of the tower.

So far, though, she and Misha had been singing healing hymns, to fix the damage being in certain areas did, while Marlone and the seraph did all the combat. Part of Aurica was thinking that Radolf and Lyner would be so impressed (Ayatane too?) and happy for her, that she could protect herself like this and they wouldn't have to worry about her anymore (and she was protecting them, right now, wasn't she, by doing this).

It was really hard not to sing, when there was all this emotion welling up inside her. The knowledge that she had all these wonderful friends (and Radolf), and she was wonderful too. She deserved them. She could take care of them, make sure nothing happened to them, and then this joy would be in her heart forever.

She'd thought about saving it up, to pour it into Mir's hymn, so she could feel these emotions and know that there were people who would love and accept her, but there was so much of it Aurica really didn't think that would be a problem.

Aurica beamed, and kept beaming as Misha deactivated the ancient contraption with a few tips she'd gotten from Krusche and a kick.

* * *

Misha frowned. "Ayatane, you jerk. He could at least have cleaned it up."

"Throw Lyner's work in the trash?" Aurica was shocked.

Yeah, that would have been even more wrong than just leaving a breakfast like this to rot here, but, "He never made _me _breakfast in bed," Misha complained, and then remembered that oh yeah, this was Lyner. All she would have had to do was ask. Although it would be a bad idea to do it now, because it would be poaching.

"Or me." And Aurica had traveled with him longer.

But she knew Radolf knew how to cook… Not that he'd ever done anything like this in his life, but if she hinted that things like this really meant a lot to her, Radolf would probably insist on doing it for her sometime, and say that he had to set a good example to the men, in showing proper consideration for reyvateils, and all the hard work they did.

"He carved the… He was supposed to be escaping, and he carved little…" Marlone showed one of the carrots to the seraph, sparkling. This was dedicated craftsmanship! It was the little details like this that increased bomb yield and emotional impact.

"Aww…" The seraph thought Marlone was complaining because it was irresponsible but romantic, just proof that no matter what, Lyner wanted to take the time to do things right for Ayatane and make sure he didn't feel neglected or unwanted even when Lyner was leaving him behind, while Marlone honestly thought it was a great idea. Suborning the enemy and undermining their ability to fight with adorable little bunnies.

That was how Lyner had been able to get past her, Marlone thought. Her ability to fuck with people had been utterly outclassed. Yes, in Lyner's case it was native talent instead of studied manipulation, but if she _could _study this? Her sixth cosmosphere avatar should have known that chains didn't work. Chains made them want to escape. Things like this made people want to pursue you to the ends of the earth, because it showed that you cared.

"I don't like it, though. Kidnapping people is _not _romantic," Misha said, completely unaware of everything her sixth cosmosphere avatar had gotten up to. "Bourd tried to… do things to me. And he actually believed that they'd worked and I'd attack the rest of you for him." No way. "The colonels are all convinced that Ayatane did something to Lyner."

Aurica looked to the side, but that was where the bed was, so she averted her eyes again, trying not to blush. "I don't think he would have. Lyner was getting really sick. Ayatane was probably just worried. I know I was."

"But you might be saying that just because he's your brother," Misha pointed out. "And because you want Lyner to be happy. I want Lyner to be happy too, but… If Ayatane did _that _to that woman so she'd love him and think he was her son when he _killed _them?"

"I know, but… Ayatane does love him." She could _hear_ it. "Of course, that might be just more reason to… If he didn't want to lose Lyner." Aurica knew how much it would shock and hurt her if Lyner suddenly hated her, thought she was a monster that had to die, and she didn't love him as much as Ayatane did. He'd sided with Lyner over _his mother_, tried to find a way to avoid betraying both, to save them both, but when he'd told her about this hymn?

He'd said he'd done it because he knew Mir could never be happy or feel at peace in Reyvateilia, but he hadn't spoken of using it to restore Mir's happiness, he'd thought of keeping her trapped. So that Lyner would be safe. Even if Ayatane died.

Love brought with it the power to do wonderful things, but Aurica knew that power, any power, could also be used to hurt people. Bourd could have protected reyvateils and the world with his sword: instead he'd slaughtered her village and family, endangered the world by kidnapping Misha and tried to reduce reyvateils to things, in his selfishness. Since he'd found joy in crushing others, making them weak compared to him, instead of helping others, and himself, grow strong.

"I can't tell," Aurica had to confess. "He's Mir's work, and if she was behind any of it? She might have done it instead of Ayatane: she'd his mother, she can't have wanted Lyner to hurt her son."

"I was hoping you would just tell me I was being paranoid, letting them get to me." It wasn't as though Leard's people thought all that much better of Lyner than their commander did, and Leard was totally unfair to his son.

"I can't know for sure," Aurica told her, "but I can tell you that I don't think it's true. I trust Ayatane, and so does Lyner, even though he also trusted him to do what was right by Mir. It's because Ayatane won't betray Mir that I don't think he'd do something like this. He _is _trustworthy, even though he was composed to be a traitor." To Platina, not Mir. Mir would have wanted someone that she could trust utterly, a child that would love her when her own parents hadn't. "And if it is Mir's doing, Ayatane wouldn't stand for it when he found out. He wants Lyner to love him, to be worthy of that love, and if he didn't really earn that love? If he failed badly enough at protecting Lyner that Mir did something like this to him and he didn't find out for so long? I hope Mir would know better than to hurt him like that, but I think once she did realize, she'd undo it for his sake. But no, I can't know for sure. Love and trust aren't safe, any more than having power, or opening your heart to obtain power ever is. But… I know that it's worth it."

"…I hope you're right." Because Misha would like to believe in that too, that love could be worth the risk and she could have some someday. It wasn't that she wanted to sing because she wanted to capture people's hearts, like Claire had captured her imagination, but that would be nice, to be admired, for people to love her songs and love her because of something she had chosen to do with her life, for herself. "…We should try to find that crystal." Because looking at the abandoned breakfast was depressing her, on top of the fact that they were here to get that crystal, not to worry about Lyner.

Two rooms later, they found what seemed to be the central control room. "There," Aurica said, pointing at the organ. "That's a holy instrument. They used them to create song crystals." The Church used pipe organs because of that, although theirs were just used for accompanying reyvateil choirs. She'd known from reading that so much knowledge had been lost, but visiting the inside of the tower, Em Pheyna and Platina, where so many miracles were commonplace? She had to petition Shurelia for permission to share some of what she knew. Not the weapons, but there had to be more they could do for third generations.

Aurica had partially wanted to become the holy maiden because she didn't have much time to live, in hindsight. Thirty years was the average, and Aurica had thought she'd had very weak blood. She'd wanted to make sure that her life would _mean _something, even when she'd thought she was worthless. She'd wanted to be remembered.

Now that she knew she was a beta-type? She'd live longer than _Misha_, since Aurica hadn't had her lifespan drained by Chronicle Key. Even without the 'borrowed' moderator account that would keep her from aging, just like Lady Shurelia and Mir. She'd outlive _Radolf_, even if he didn't get killed fighting viruses. Even once Mir was saved, there would still be wild beasts, and Radolf believed in getting out there and helping people: he hadn't stopped because he was now the chief bishop, and he wouldn't stop just because he was getting old.

She didn't let those thoughts make her pause. Not when the first step to saving everyone was saving Mir. Colonel Jade had said that Lady Shurelia had suppressed knowledge of science because of how destructive the wars were. If Mir could be saved, if peace was brought to the tower, if Lady Shurelia could believe in her people again, then surely she would revoke those decrees. Surely the goddess of the tower would wish to help Aurica save her people.

By healing the pain of the past, they could move forward to the future. She believed in that.


	34. Those We Fight For

_The 'old legend' is a story from the Bible, recast into Ar Tonelico terms. Actually, now that I think about it, it kind of sounds like a version of the Rhaplanca and Maoh mythos that made its way to Sol Ciel. _

_This chapter is really a reference to Lyner and Ayatane's conversation and battle on the way up to fight possessed Shurelia. That they acknowledge that because of who they are, and what they value, they both understand why the other one is fighting, why they _have _to fight. Lyner wanting to protect the world and Shurelia: Ayatane trying to protect his mother – they aren't bad reasons to fight, and honestly if either of them had just stood down the other would have been disappointed in them. There, understanding did not prevent conflict in the short term, but it did prevent hatred, and led to the resolution of the conflict. Ar Tonelico is, after all, a series that believes that some things and people are worth fighting for. It's just that in order for anything to be safe, the fighting has to stop at some point, and that can't happen unless people believe that their opponents are honorable and will hold up their end of the bargain and such._

"_Trust is sexier than sex." Respect is a key component of love. For Aurica, with her self-esteem issues, I do think that being respected is something that makes her feel loved and valued as a person, which is part of why Radolf. He believed in her all along, after all._

* * *

They'd sort of expected Mir to send a virus to attack them at this point.

They didn't expect this.

Or for him to draw his sword on them, although he held it in a position that was clearly defensive. They knew he didn't want to attack them, but they'd also seen Lyner hold that pose. They knew it was a bad idea to go within strike range of, "Guardian?" Aurica was clearly taken aback, that he was the one blocking their path to the crystal. She'd only taken a few steps into the room when he appeared.

"That crystal contains Mir's most precious feelings. I cannot let you take it and use it to hurt her. Not again." The Guardian's voice was calm instead of apologetic. He obviously knew that they were going to object to this, and he clearly didn't care. Because it was that simple.

"But… I don't want to hurt her."

"You want to take a hymn crafted by her when she was a child, that contains all of her precious hope, and use it against her. Use it to try to break her resolve. When it broke her once before, and you know this." The Guardian shook his head, not quite in condemnation, but in absolute refusal. "A second emotional violation like that could very well destroy her."

Misha bit back the words, 'Well, wouldn't that be a good thing?' When she was less mature, she definitely would have said that, but that was because she'd barely known anything about people or feelings. Mir had to be listening, and words like that? Well, they certainly wouldn't help. She'd probably heard people say that a thousand times, but it still had to hurt, someone saying they wanted you to just die.

"I know that it's dangerous, but it's the only way we've thought of to help her. I don't want to take anything away from her, I just want to give it back to her."

"Make her a vulnerable child again?" No, he shook his head. That wasn't the point. "Your reasons do not change the fact that it is wrong to take the product of someone's true heart and use it against them like this. If you want to show her your feelings, then show her your feelings. Don't treat hers as something you can manipulate, use as your tool. That… To treat a reyvateil and the songs that come from her heart as simply your tool, to use as you see fit, no matter the cost to her? That is something I cannot forgive." Would never permit.

"Even Mir?" Aurica asked, even though she knew the answer. This was a part of Lyner, after all. The part of him that had nearly thrown his life away to get the Exec_Linker crystal for her. The part that tried to help anyone in need, regardless of the cost to himself and his own dreams.

"Especially Mir." Of course. "Mir fought to protect others, in the memory of when no one protected her. And now the only ones who she trusted, her own _family, _have turned against her." He didn't seem to be condemning Aurica and Ayatane for it, he was simply stating a fact. "However, that is not the reason I am doing this." It had nothing to do with Mir's history, or feeling that he had to make up for his conscious mind stealing Ayatane and Aurica from her. "The fact remains that she is a person, not a thing, and no one should have to stand alone. No one should simply be sacrificed for the sake of the world," he said, eyes flickering briefly to Misha, to remind her, to remind them both, of how he had learned that. How she should already know this.

There still was no expression on his face but calm determination and focus. "No one should have their voice stolen from them, have the voice that should express their heart and mind twisted to someone else's purpose, or ground underfoot. Regardless of Mir's feelings, regardless of yours, this fact will remain: a peace built on the bodies of innocents is no peace. An unwilling sacrifice is not a sacrifice, it is murder." Misha's ancestresses in the Chronicle Key. Mir in the Silver Horn.

Mir had wished to build Reyvateilia, her peaceful world, after the slaughter of humanity. The Guardian's calm words dismissed her dream as impossible just as he dismissed what had been done to protect the world from it as unjust.

"So I will stand against you, who wish to use your power to force another's heart. I will stand against you even if it means the destruction of the tower. Because if I do not, if no one does, then this world does not deserve to survive."

Still that calm, still that inner peace, as though he knew some absolute truth. As though he saw everything as just that simple.

Misha found it disturbing. Aurica had met her own Cosmosphere avatars. She knew, and knew Lyner knew, that there were many truths. That it was not this simple. But Cosmosphere avatars were aspects of a reyvateil, of the truths at war within them, the knowledge born of both joy and suffering they had gained over their lives.

There was an old story Aurica had read in the church's library, of how a goddess had condemned a town full of evildoers to destruction, and told her love to flee it so that he was not caught up in her wrath. He had pleaded with her to reconsider: what would it take for her to spare them? If it was not so simple a matter of good and evil, but he could prove to her that there were good people there? People that did not deserve to have their lives snuffed out simply because some of their neighbors were cruel?

Yes, she had said.

How many? A hundred, ten, five: even one? Even one, to prove that it was not beyond redemption, that there was still hope?

Yes, she had said.

Then he would stay, he had told her.

And she had stayed her hand.

She knew Lyner probably hadn't read that story. He wasn't doing this because he believed that one person standing up for her would necessarily make a difference to Mir. That wasn't the point, as the Guardian saw it. The point was that this was the right thing to do, or _a _right thing to do.

"Does Mir even want you to fight for her?" Misha asked him, rhetorically.

There was only a slight shrug. "Regardless of whether she wants help, needs it, or believes in it, the fact remains that she deserves it. Is entitled to it. Even if she struck me down now, I would not regret making a stand here." Not for the individual: for what was right. For the foundation of the world he believed in.

"And if you beat us, and she kept attacking the tower, attacking innocent people with her viruses, you'd fight them to protect those people," Aurica knew.

"But… with this hymn, we could prevent any more of those attacks from happening," Misha tried to argue, even though she was sure it wasn't going to work. Even though it _should_, this was the best chance they had to save everyone. "So, if you're fine with fighting Mir…"

"It's not about fighting her, it's about how we fight her." Aurica tried to see things from his perspective, and explain it. "It's about staying people worth fighting for. Because if we become monsters in order to fight Mir, then wouldn't she have won? Wouldn't the world you want to protect have destroyed itself? Wouldn't she be able to tell herself that she was right all along?" Wouldn't she fall deeper into hatred and despair? "I think I understand, but I don't agree with you."

Aurica held her hand over her heart. "The song can't be an evil thing. Not when it's made of her hope and love for her parents. Every song changes the world, changes the hearts of those that listen to it. It's a power that can hurt, but it can also heal. Song magic is a dangerous power: I know that, that's why I locked my true power away for so long. I didn't want to hurt anyone. And I don't want to hurt Mir. All I can do is be careful with her heart, and since her heart is important to me, I know I'll do my best." She just had to believe that would be enough. "But it is dangerous for me to do this, to use that song." Since it might give Mir more power and determination to attack the tower with. "Just like it's dangerous for you to view Mir as someone worth protecting instead of someone that just needs to be fought." Since delaying them might give Mir more time to attack the tower. "I can't… really say that what you're doing is wrong. Especially since we're both basically trying to do the same thing, in different ways."

Aurica realized something. "You haven't asked me not to fight you. Or said that what I'm doing is wrong."

"Huh?" Misha was puzzled. He'd said that he couldn't stand for using a crystal like that, and he'd attack them if they tried it: wasn't that something people only did when they thought something was wrong? She didn't think that any part of Lyner would attack them for no good reason: she'd thought he was trying to get them to back down, go away.

But the Guardian just nodded slightly, as though that was an, 'of course.'

That meant that he respected her resolve. That he believed she really had thought this through, that it wasn't something he could dissuade her from with a few words, or by telling her that she was a silly little girl. That he didn't think she was a silly little girl at all, even though he had to oppose her. He was fighting for Mir here, and not her, because he thought that she didn't need to be fought for right now. Wasn't the one here that needed protecting. He wasn't worried about fighting her because he wasn't worried about her doing anything that got her or Misha killed in the process, not even when she was fighting _him_.

Um. That was…

Aurica's lips twitched a little, and she knew that she was blushing harder than she ever had in her life.

That was the nicest thing anyone had ever thought about her. He was fighting her, and he still believed in her like that. He didn't have any doubts about it.

Ayatane was so lucky…

She was _not _going to cry. Her eyes were definitely not watery. She was a confident holy maiden and she didn't need to care this much about anyone else's opinion of her, nope. She already knew that Lyner believed in her anyway, so hearing it, or not hearing it because it didn't really need to be said, from a piece of him shouldn't make any difference whatsoever.

She was also not going to hug the person sort of pointing a sword at her.

Well, she could disarm him first, right?

"Wow," Misha said, finally getting it. "Jack was right, you're just _not fair_." Obviously Jack, who was a doofus, wasn't going to be able to compete with that.

Misha wanted someone to say that _she _was badass.

And the Guardian clearly had no idea why this was anything special, which just made it even more clear that it was genuine. That his high opinion of them was just something he thought was obviously true.

"Alright!" Misha declared, and Seraph and Marlone took that as their cue to manifest in front of Aurica. "Watch out, because we're not leaving here without that crystal!"

An answering roar came from behind the guardian, and Aurica opened her mouth to cry, 'Watch out!'

But the guardian didn't flinch, simply stood there, even though it was clear that he was waiting to see that the creature Mir had sent would do. He didn't turn around. She could have stabbed him in the back.

Silence. No one moved, except the virus, as it readied itself. And then held that position, waiting. A second passed.

Another.

"It seems she accepts your challenge as well," the guardian said, and charged.

* * *

_Remember: The social contract Lyner grew up under contains 'reyvateils are entitled to a guardian,' which is half based on religious/historical guilt and half sheer practicality: _reyvateils have more firepower than humans_. A couple of humans getting in a street fight with swords means broken bones, at the most two deaths. A couple of reyvateils means no more street. Honor duels seem a bit silly nowadays, but the idea was to settle grievances one on one so they didn't get settled in war. Think about it in terms of which is better for everyone on the tower: a boss battle with Mir, or Mir dropping the other wing of Horus. So, in sheerly practical terms, the more psycho a reyvateil is, the more they need to be assigned a guardian, in hopes this will even slightly reduce the frequency with which they deal with annoyances themselves. No matter how much it sucks to be that guardian. Once you strip off the idealistic language, a lot of honor codes really boil down to this kind of cold-blooded practicality._

_Of course, Lyner just thinks of it in terms of 'the right thing to do,' and 'I know I'd like it if someone did that for me,' not that kind of calculation. _


	35. Those We Don't

_The outcome of this scene had to be altered from the original concept to avoid detracting from the fact this is Aurica and Misha's arc. I'm hoping this doesn't mess up the foreshadowing, since there was going to be a reveal in there relevant to what will happen in the fic after Harmonious is sung. This delayed the chapter, obviously, because I had to try to figure out how to rework all that. Still, the fact it turned out this way let me establish a few other things that will become relevant very soon, so I'm much happier with this chapter than this week's chapter of Defintion. Still, notice that this is the one I waited until after Friday to post... _

* * *

"So what are we singing?" Misha asked, as the Seraph blocked the Guardian's blade with her own. Whatever they were doing, they'd better decide quick.

"Well, they need to be able to harmonize… And I've never been able to do that," Aurica confessed. "It's one of the reasons I wasn't ranked very highly…" She'd wondered if that was why Lyner had never asked her and Misha to sing together, until a conversation at an inn revealed that Lyner had never noticed she had a problem with it. He'd just thought that since they were doing a lot of walking, which wasn't good for reyvateils, they should at least be able to rest their voices as much as possible. It was military doctrine that during long battles, the reyvateils fought in shifts, so he'd asked whichever of them was least tired to sing. Just like he'd change the front line fighters if they got tired, provided there was someone to take their place.

It was typical Lyner, really, that he'd never taken a break himself until Ayatane forced him to. He'd always been in the vanguard.

As a pure-blooded beta type, Misha didn't need to worry about dying prematurely from telomere damage because her metabolism was too high, but she'd also been locked up in a room almost all her life, while Aurica had been training to become a holy maiden and going on missions with the church knights. So the singing had been rougher on Aurica than on Misha, and the walking had been tougher for Misha than Aurica.

"Well, songs that harmonize are more powerful songs, right?" Misha pointed out.

"You think it's because I was afraid of power, and of opening my heart to people?"

"Why not? Well, another reason could be that you're a third generation and the tower was giving you a beta type's amount of song magic power by mistake," hymn codes were supposed to make sure that didn't happen, but Aurica had Mir's, "so it was already hard to control and trying to harmonize with another third generation would make it a lot worse." Since suddenly _they _would be trying to deal with a level of power they hadn't been bred to handle, and hadn't spent their entire life dealing with the way Aurica had. "But I'm a beta-type, and I've sung Chronicle Key. Too much power isn't going to be a problem," Misha said, grinning like she was boasting.

It wasn't a boast.

The harsh training Leard had put her through, and his ancestors had put her ancestresses through, had a point. Most reyvateils would stop singing when their systems alerted them that they were handling too much power, that it was starting to burn them out and do permanent damage. That was probably what had happened to the church reyvateils that had tried to sing with Aurica. Misha, on the other hand?

She'd keep singing no matter what. Even if it killed her.

She'd been born, bred and raised to be a sacrifice for the world, after all.

"We ca-Ah!" Aurica cried out, as the Guardian finally managed to dive past the Seraph!

"Forgive me!" the seraph cried, but it was Marlone that knocked him away.

It wasn't so much the force of the blow that did it – any version of Lyner had a trained stance, and a knight getting knocked out of the way so the enemy could use the opening and attack the reyvateil was _bad_ – but the bomb in her hand. "This is tougher than it looks," Marlone said, scowling, as she jumped back herself to let the Seraph dive in, the momentum forcing him back further while he was still off-balance and keeping him from attacking the weaker Marlone.

Marlone's words reminded Aurica of overheard conversations among the knights. Reyvateils had the easy job, didn't they? They just hung back there and sang, while the knights did all the work, and then they'd screech if they got hit once, while the knights were out there getting attacked _constantly_. And they said _they _were tired, when the knights were the ones swinging heavy swords around?

The reyvateils, on the other hand, thought that if the knights couldn't recognize hard work when they saw it, then they were the ones who were whining.

"…Why don't I use a blue magic," Misha proposed, because if the guardian was getting through their guards, then what about… Mir was gathering power for a song magic.

Why hadn't they sensed that until now.

"It won't do any good, we'll have to power up fast and hit her before she hits us!" Aurica looked at Misha. "There's one song magic we both have." Aurica wasn't sure if she could do this, especially with such a powerful song magic, but she'd learned that determination _mattered_. She didn't know if she could do this or not, but she _had to _do this, for Radolf and Mir and the entire tower, so she _would_.

Was Misha with her?

"Right!" Of course she was, and Aurica had made the right call. No blue magic was going to protect them from the level of power _Mir _could channel. Even the ones that absorbed damage could only take so much. Marlone could handle the healing – they'd seen that on the way here.

They might not have been so confident if they'd heard what the Seraph was saying to the Guardian, as their blades clashed ground against each other. Even though she was calling on the tower for strength, she knew he had to be able to do the same thing, and, "You're going easy on me." Why?

"You're a reyvateil." That didn't stop him from doing something involving a sharp and sudden twist of his blade followed by a thrust that almost knocked her sword out of her hand. "And a rookie. Why aren't you using a spear?" Like Radolf. "You knowledge of…" he dodged to the left to avoid being buffeted by one of her wings – they might look white and ornamental, but a swan's wings could break bones. "Fighting is limited." And she'd had more years to study Radolf's style than Lyner's. "You're imitating a style. _My _style." The defensive art Platina had honed over centuries, to hold the line. Ayatane might use two swords, and there were certainly others whose body types weren't suited to it or preferred other weapons, but the Guardian was far past a master. Protecting reyvateils was the core of this aspect of Lyner's being, after all.

"Aurica thinks swords are more heroic." Even though the statue of the guardian…

"And what do you think?" he asked her, tilting his head as he studied her, looking for an opening.

"…I'm part of Aurica."

"And you have to agree with her, even when you'd be better able to protect her if you fought with a spear?" She could _fly_. A weapon that gave her a longer reach would be a massive advantage. "Even cosmosphere avatars… You don't know what you are, do you?" he wondered. "Or what you almost were."

"…What?" she asked, forced to use a wingbeat to help her dodge, wincing as that let him slice deep into her right wing. At least Marlone took care of it with a potion, after she took advantage of the fact that the Seraph had finally pulled back from the Guardian to hit him with a handful of small bombs.

"I thought…" he said, although no one could hear him over the explosions. Finally, he shook his head.

And lowered his sword. "Mir! Are you going to fight or aren't you?"

The black behemoth _looked _at him. A lesser man – or being, since avatars were only fragments of men or women – would have quailed back. He met her eyes, his own hard, although it didn't stop him from lashing out with his sword to hit one of Marlone's bombs back at her.

"_How did he do that?" _Marlone wondered, ignoring the pain as she got another Healy-C out of her pocket. It wasn't a serious injury, but burns were distracting. "He's using the tower's cameras!" she yelled to Seraph. Because there was no way he could have seen that bomb coming otherwise. Not and hit it so perfectly.

"Song," Misha said, her eyes distant, her arms spreading as if to embrace the world. That was what she sang for now, that was what the tower meant to her. It was always where she had sung, but now, someday soon, she would sing free.

"Harmony," was Aurica's answer, reaching up to the heavens.

"Grant us power!" they called, and the tower answered. The guardian, the seraph, Marlone, Mir – even Shurelia felt it.

The guardian had to cover his eyes then, so the light didn't blind him, but when he lowered his arm he went right back to staring down the Mother Virus. "Aurica is young, but her power is the equal of yours," the guardian reminded Mir, even as the Seraph and Marlone turned to light and vanished, all of Aurica's heart dedicated to this song. "Misha is your nemesis. The only way for me to stop them from singing now is to kill one of them, and when they release this song it will destroy both of our manifestations here. They'll win and take Harmonius. But you don't want me to kill Aurica, I'm sure, and as for you… You're reminding me of when Bourd thought he could use Misha to attack her friends: you're hesitating. When you fought them before, you didn't fight like this. You're just charging that up, and charging it up, and every guardian worth their salt knows how to judge how much power a song magic has. You can't expect me to believe that's the limit of your abilities.

"You're not putting your heart into that song," he accused her. "It's not just that you aren't drawing power from me: I expected that. None of the scum that raised you thought you could care: they never taught you to turn that into power." It was simple math: say people cared so much about themselves. Add the amount they cared about a second person to that? And a third, and a fourth?

He'd thrown himself in front of some of Marlone's bombs for her sake. The reyvateils Lyner had grown up with, or almost any decent person? That would have meant something to them.

He hadn't expected Mir to care about him. He hadn't expected gratitude for something she hadn't asked him to do in the first place. Part of the reason he'd said that he wasn't doing it for her was because otherwise he'd been quite sure she wouldn't accept the help, not from someone who had been a human, who fought like a human and symbolized, to her, humans and their hypocrisy in claiming to protect reyvateils.

He was a guardian, like Misha's Yasha. Meant to serve and protect, without ego. If he wouldn't mind death, he certainly wouldn't balk at not being thanked. It would have been ridiculous to expect her to care what happened to him, from the Guardian's perspective.

He did expect her to care about herself.

The guardians and their pains didn't matter. The reyvateils did. Reyvateils were not supposed to be harmed, and now Mir was going to just let herself be hurt? Again? "I said I would protect you, but I cannot protect you if you do not want to be protected. What if I was to try to kill Misha to protect you? What then? Would you unleash that song on me?" He shook his head slowly, eyes still not leaving those inhuman ones. "Are you willing to fight them to protect yourself, or not?"

The behemoth bared its teeth as the light around Misha and Aurica flared.

"I won't kill one reyvateil for the sake of another who doesn't even care if she lives or dies," he said angrily, sheathing his sword. Then he bowed his head. "Forgive me." It wasn't her fault: he had no right to be angry at her. "But now is the time. Strike now, or they will take the crystal," he reminded her.

Mir's power pulsed above her head, a dark halo as she looked at the two of them. They weren't singing aloud, but she could still hear it, the hymn words their hearts spoke as they communed with the tower.

She hesitated. Or rather, she realized that she'd been hesitating this entire battle. When she'd fought them before, there hadn't been anyone to keep the vanguard off her. Her anger at the humans who dared strike her had interrupted her and she hadn't even really tried to sing powerful songs, instead using other powers.

Why had she suddenly decided to fight like a partnered reyvateil?

Had she wanted an excuse to stand back and… not do _nothing_, but not do anything that would hurt her daughter?

What had happened to her as she slept? Where was the killer instinct that had destroyed one of the Wings of Horus without remorse?

_But those were humans and collaborators. This is your daughter_.

And here it came.

She could have retreated, or rather withdrawn the virus she used as her avatar before the song hit it. Purger meant that attacks in the real world could damage programs now, and it would take time to repair it.

Frozen, she didn't. She/it just stood there, trying to understand what the hell she was doing.

At least she understood why the guardian didn't withdraw, let himself be engulfed by the tower's heart, by her daughter's heart, by power akin to the _sun's _heart alongside her.

Cosmosphere avatars were proverbially insane, after all.


	36. What We Believe

_Bad internet. For once, this isn't late just because it's late._

* * *

"So this is it?" Misha certainly hoped so: there weren't any other hymn crystals in here. Hadn't Mir made a lot of hymns here? So why had this one, and this one alone, been left here? Shouldn't all of them have been taken somewhere to study them? People had been talking about profiling and assessments and other military things that boiled down to, 'know your enemy,' when she and Aurica had been in the hurried version of boot camp.

Aurica had been grateful for the additional training, even though they'd pushed her really hard. Misha had thought it was a walk in the park, to be honest. Although getting advice on how to sing hymns other than Chronicle Key had been useful.

Aurica frowned. "The only way to tell for sure would be to download it, but…"

"Remember what happened to Lyner," Misha finished for her. Mir not actually fighting them like that could mean she wanted them to have it. And not in a nice, 'I want to be saved and find out that the world wasn't as horrible as I thought it was,' way.

"Lady Shurelia should have some way of finding out what it is, right?" Aurica wondered. She wanted to download it now, she wanted to go right to the Crescent Chronicle and get this over with, but it might not be safe.

They should have backup when they tried it, too. Just in case Mir was willing to fight them the next time. She hadn't fought a world and held on for all these centuries without being stubborn. If she captured them, took Aurica out of the equation the way she had Lyner? "Misha?" Aurica asked, turning the crystal over in her hands. "Remember that you said you thought that you should sing to save Mir, instead of just to hurt her?"

"Yes." Of course Misha did. She'd said it more than once because she _meant _it, it wasn't an idle statement. She hadn't nagged, and it made sense that they didn't want to remind Mir of Chronicle Key when they tried to tell her that things could be different, but Misha had still felt like she _had _to have some part in this. She wanted to slam the door of the Crescent Chronicle, the door to the past when people had suffered and sacrificed, shut with her own two hands. That had been why she'd wanted to sing Harmonious, as much or maybe more than because she was a member of the Lune line, and she should help Mir to make up for how she'd hurt her, with her song. To make things right herself, so they couldn't go back to being so deeply wrong.

"Now that I've sung with you, now that I know that I can sing with you, I think you're right." Now Aurica knew what it was like, now that she knew she could do it. If she hadn't been able to sing with Misha, then if Misha sang Harmonious to Mir, Aurica couldn't. And she wanted to. "If we show her both of our feelings, so she knows I'm not the only one." That it wasn't just her daughter, wasn't just Aurica and Ayatane, that wanted to make peace with her? "I think that's much better than just me."

"You're not putting yourself down again, are you?" Misha asked, and Aurica smiled because she'd just been wondering the same thing. Was this because she thought she couldn't save Mir on her own, so she wanted someone else to share the burden and the blame?

Yet, was it wrong to want to share the burden, to let other people help? If something was important, and this would determine the fate of the tower and so much more, then wasn't it okay to be glad that she had friends that wanted to help her? That if she fell, Misha could carry on for her?

So, "No," Aurica said. "I think it would be underestimating Mir, and you, to not ask you. I wouldn't be taking this seriously enough if I didn't try to plan for what would happen. I know I can count on you, Misha, so…"

"Of course you can," Misha interrupted. "So why are we still talking about it?" She didn't want Aurica to be morbid.

"…Because I want to download the crystal now," Aurica confessed. "I don't want to just leave without making sure we got what we came for." If this wasn't it, or if this was some spell for doing maintenance on the Silver Horn, they had to keep looking.

"Alright."

"Alright?"

"I know the spell for downloading hymns," even though someone else had always cast it for her, because Chronicle Key was a very secret and important hymn and Misha's authorization level wasn't high enough.

Aurica had actually been surprised that Misha was fine with just doing it when it could be dangerous, but after a moment, Aurica smiled. "Right." Even if she did fall unconscious, what Mir did to Lyner hadn't taken out his cosmosphere avatars. So between hers and Misha, they'd certainly be able to get Aurica out of here safely, without too much trouble.

And if she didn't fall unconscious, then she'd know for sure. So Misha was right to be so confident: it was worth the risk.

Honestly, Aurica had admired Misha from the beginning. Even though she'd been kidnapped, experimented on, had her hymn stolen and been turned into a child, she hadn't let it get her down. She'd kept working to get it back and hadn't let Bourd intimidate her. If Aurica was going to be the holy maiden, if she was going to speak in front of countless people the way Misha wanted to sing to them, she needed to learn how to do that. She knew she could, if the real her, the heart of her could. It was definitely in her to do that, to inspire others.

"If it's the right one, I'll teach you the spell and then you'll give me the hymn too. Deal?" Misha offered her hand to seal the bargain, like with Spica.

Aurica took her hand, squeezed it. "Deal."

Misha spoke the words and Aurica closed her eyes, to focus on the feelings of the hymn.

Joy. Hope Determination.

'_I found out it was possible to change the world, so I won't give up trying to change you. Even if trying hurts me, even if you hurt me, I won't give up on getting through to you. Because you are my mother and my father, and I love you.' _

"It's the real crystal," Aurica said as soon as it was over. It couldn't be anything else.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm… fine. Why?"

"You're crying."

Aurica wiped her eyes. "It's just… How could they? How could they have refused this hymn, refused her feelings? She loved them so much, even though they hurt her so much, and… I can't understand it." It didn't make any sense.

"I don't want to understand it," Misha said sensibly. "Lyner's the one who wants to understand why people do things like that. I just want them to stop. Who would want to be able to think like Bourd?" What if seeing people as things to play with or any of that was _catching? _Misha wanted to stop people like that, not study them.

"If you don't know why they do things, then how can you get them to stop?" Aurica wondered.

"Lots of ways. We've got song magic, Krusche's got a chainsaw…"

"That didn't stop Mir," Aurica reminded Misha. "And I don't think it helped her, either." But if this song hadn't worked, then what was she supposed to do? Give up? No, the person who composed this hymn would never give up. Not on making things _right_.

Songs were the power that would move the human heart, Aurica had read in so many books, but songs were the power that would move the universe because they drew their power from the human heart. Just as it was possible for someone to stand in the face of the universe and not be moved, to sing and force it to change with that power and that determination, it was possible for someone to listen to every song ever crafted and not be moved. Not let those songs force them to change. Their body, maybe, but not their heart.

A song, like any other power, could force someone to die. It couldn't force them to change.

What had made Mir's parents so determined to oppose her song? How could they refuse love like this? How could they possibly _want _to?

But then, how could they possibly have tortured their own daughter-"Ah!" Aurica gasped, horrified. Her eyes were wide with shock, and she almost wished she hadn't realized this. It was so wrong, so sad.

"What is it?" Misha asked, looking around the room in case Aurica had seen something here.

"Her parents, they… Remember that in the early days, before the Church, most people didn't think that reyvateils were people?"

"Yeah," Misha said, nodding.

"And Mir was supposed to be emotionless. So she shouldn't have had a heart to hurt." And now Aurica's ached. "This song… These are a person's feelings. _Real _feelings. Their _daughter's _feelings. What if they didn't understand that they were hurting Mir? They were trying to make her sing better. Like, like fine-tuning a grathmelding recipe. What if they weren't torturing her because they enjoyed it or thought it was okay to torture people, like Bourd, but they told themselves they weren't _really _torturing her, because she didn't really feel, and this would make sure of that. So she wouldn't hurt. She wasn't a person that could be hurt. And then they heard this song."

"And they didn't want to be wrong? Didn't want to have their theory disproven?" Misha scowled: she'd met researchers like that, in Tenba Labs.

Aurica shook her head. No, no, that wasn't it. Or it was part of it, but it wasn't the real reason. No, that wasn't it at all. "They could believe in this song, listen to the feelings in here and know that Mir was their daughter and they'd _been torturing their daughter, all those years_, or they could… Don't you see? Before this song, they thought everything was fine and they were good people. Then they heard this song, and if they'd listened to it, then they would have hurt their daughter. They could believe that they'd done so many horrible things to such a poor little girl, that they were awful, terrible people and hadn't even _known_ it, or they could tell themselves that the song was a lie, just… something wrong with their creation. Or they could tell themselves that the only reason she felt this way was that something had gone wrong, and that if they hurt her more, if they tortured her _right _this time, she'd stop feeling those emotions, she'd _stop hurting_." And everything would also be right again. "Song magic is about changing the world. So… they could live in a world, or believe they lived in a world, where everything was fine and Mir was okay, or in a world where _they'd tortured their daughter_. And… the more she sang, the more this song maybe made them love her, the more they would have wanted the first world to be the real one. For the real world to be the one where she wasn't hurting."

"So if it was okay to torture her, then they would have tortured her to make her stop singing. Stop trying to tell them that they were hurting her." Misha looked green. Then _shuddered _that was creepy. "At least Leard didn't think that the fact he was doing it for my own good made it _right_." It was for her own good. It would make her last longer, be sure to survive long enough for her daughter to come of age and take her place. It would keep Mir from breaking loose. It didn't mean he hadn't been traumatizing a young girl, a reyvateil.

Necessary and right weren't the same thing, not at all, and hurting kids, well, it just wasn't right.

She could admit that to herself, but she'd never hurt any of her own children. She'd put of having them, meaning she'd have to sing for longer, meaning she'd _die sooner_, in order to avoid hurting them for as long as possible.

She'd thought of Mir's parents as monsters, as shallow and selfish, but would Mir have loved them that much if they were?

And people who weren't monsters, like Leard, like _Lyner_, didn't want to have to torture children.

Or have tortured children.

So, if they'd refused to listen to her, maybe it hadn't been because they were evil people. Evil people _liked _hurting others, liked forcing them to react, liked seeing them cry. It made them feel powerful.

They hadn't wanted her to cry.

That might just have been because they'd thought her a doll with no tears to shed, or wanted her to be one.

So they wouldn't have made her cry.


	37. Nor Iron Bars

_I found a translation of Rig_Veda, the song that Mir sings, long after I decided how I wanted the Mir redemption scene to go, and it was amazingly appropriate._

_Exec_Linker is also interesting: a lot of it is how the people who feared and hated Mir are dead, and the world now could accept her. Nice foreshadowing._

_I made an effort to stick to words/concepts that Aurica has used before in other hymns, to create something that feels a bit like her voice and also references Mir's (a certain hymn in AT2?)._

* * *

Jack made a sound under his breath that was probably a curse. "Why'd we have to promise Granny we wouldn't go in?"

"Because it is forbidden," Flute said shortly, apropos of, 'Shut up and quit your whining about having to wait.' Tastiella would tell them if she thought the reyvateils had taken too long and might need to be rescued. Until then, none of them were going in.

"Well, we don't have anyone who can open any gates with us, or a reyvateil," Krusche pointed out. "I don't count. There are going to be ancient booby traps," defense systems, same thing, "and none of us can read the language." She could make out a few words, but they needed her to fly this thing. She couldn't take risks like that.

Well, Flute could, and Harmonica could have if he'd continued his studies, but Flute didn't volunteer that information.

"So be quiet and let me rest," Krusche ordered Jack, leaning back in her chair. At this point, only the white ring she had on was keeping her awake, and it would only keep her from losing consciousness, it wouldn't keep her mind sharp enough to dodge debris in time. No matter what anyone grathmelded, flying without proper sleep would still be suicide, especially as close to the blastline as Platina was.

It felt like she'd only closed her eyes for a moment, and Jack was shaking her arm (if gently), so she raised her other arm, vaguely swatting in his general direction for him to knock it off. "They're back."

"Hey, are you alright?" Misha asked. Krusche didn't look so good. And she also owed Misha a lot of food. Not that that was the real reason for her concern.

"I'm fine." She straightened up in her seat, rubbing her eyes.

"Should I sing?" Aurica offered.

"I said I'm fine," she snapped, then said, "Sorry," because Aurica hadn't been questioning her competence as a pilot. "It's not far to Em Pheyna." And she could sleep there, since Flute would post a guard on the airship.

"We've got all the gear with us, we can camp out, right?" Jack looked at Misha and Aurica for support. "Or is there anything you guys need from in there?" Something that he could help them get, while Krusche rested?

"I need to return to Em Phenya." Flute gave Harmonica a quelling look. The human had said she was fine, and in case Harmonica hadn't noticed, there was a war on and Flute needed to be in Em Pheyna, now that the safety of the two reyvateils had been confirmed and he had done his duty to Tastiella. The humans could find out that Mir most likely intended to drop the other Wing of Horus and invade at any time. Flute had a duty, even if Harmonica had forsaken his.

As Krusche completed the preflight check, Aurica asked Jack, "Where's Ayatane?"

"He went looking for you." Of course. "He went to Platina first, so Shurelia could use her power to give the tower a look-over. She saw that you'd gone to the Silver Horn, so he came back down and told us that, but she wanted him to go to the Plasma Bell, since he could get to the Child of Light faster than the Church knights and the Apostles."

Aurica nodded: that made sense. "So he'll stay there until they get there?"

Jack nodded, but half-shrugged. Yeah, that was what Shurelia had told him, and it made sense, but at the rate things kept coming up… "So, how'd it go?" How had they managed to go through that place without anyone on the front lines, anyway?

"We got the crystal," Misha told him. "Can we go straight to the Crescent Chronicle?"

"I don't know." Jack glanced at Krusche. "They're not that tough in there, but we'll have to fight Mir again, I'll bet."

Aurica and Misha looked at each other. They weren't so sure, but they shouldn't take any chances.

"Is he going to help?" Misha asked Jack, obviously about Flute.

"Lady Tastiella has asked me to assist you, Star Singer," he said shortly, turning to look out the window.

Misha stared at Jack. Wow, she had never seen him _this _grumpy before!

Jack winced a little, because even though Flute and he didn't get along, Misha was right: he wasn't normally this bad. All of this had to be getting to him. Bourd's attack, when Misha had been kidnapped, then the invasion of the church knights: Flute had failed to protect his people twice. And now, instead of rogue groups, Em Pheyna might be attacked by everything the lower lands had, in the name of survival, and Flute knew very well that he wouldn't be able to hold them off. They'd barely be able to mount anything that resembled a credible resistance, and if the humans though the Teru wanted to leave them to their deaths, trapped on a falling Wing?

The few Teru in Platina would survive. The people of Em Pheyna? Their lives would be in the hands of lower worlders, and from what they'd experienced over the past two invasions, the lower worlders had no mercy.

Just like Leard, just like Radolf and Amano, Flute knew that the end of his people could be fast approaching. He didn't like it. He didn't like what he might have to do in order to stop it.

It was childish to cling to his contempt for Harmonica, for the way 'Jack' had wanted to use the forbidden weapons when Bourd invaded. He wanted to tell himself that of course Harmonica had been wrong, of course Em Pheyna would never use the forbidden weapons. Of course he would never resort to that.

Even if it was the only way to save his people?

Had Harmonica been right all along? After all, if they'd stopped Bourd from taking Misha…

Or if he'd even sent a larger force to search for her, try to reclaim her, instead of letting Harmonica be the only one to keep looking while the rest of his people huddled behind their walls. Was it his fault Mir had been awake for so long, able to set so many plans in motion? Would the death of his people be on his hands, because he hadn't wanted them to go among humans and be killed after he'd seen so many of them slaughtered?

He was well aware that Tastiella had told him to go with Harmonica partially in hopes that they would make up and become friends again. Normally, he appreciated Lady Tastiella's help, but now? He didn't want to mend the rift between them. Didn't want to think that Harmonica was a reasonable person, that his decisions and suggestions had been reasonable ones. Because then, he would have to face the idea that he himself had been wrong. Very wrong.

Quite possibly dead wrong.

"We can't wait for them to get there," Aurica decided sadly. Or for someone to figure out how to wake Lyner up, if there even was anyone other than Mir who could free him from the curse she'd put him under. Not when the longer they waited, the more likely it was that Mir would attack the Plasma Bell, or do something else, something unexpected and perhaps even more dangerous. Turning the humans Platina (and Krusche) into reyvateils, putting Lyner to sleep: no one had expected those, and if even Shurelia, who had fought her before, didn't think she could figure out what Mir might do? "So we'll have to go without Ayatane." Even though having them both there would make Mir more likely to listen, she hoped.

"It'll just be the…" Misha looked around, counting, then realized something. "How many of us, again?" she asked Aurica. It was five of them if Flute came, but seven, maybe even eight, if Aurica's avatars helped out.

"If we have the others to help, it's probably better if all of my avatars watch over us from the binary field," Aurica realized. "That's where my level nine was."

"The binary field?" Jack asked. "Aurica, you have avatars too now? Doing stuff, I mean." Because of course every reyvateil had cosmosphere avatars.

Aurica nodded. "It's because the tower has me confused with Mir, though. If she fixed that, they couldn't manifest anymore." She hoped that didn't occur to Mir.

It was a good thing she'd said it here, inside the airship, instead of someplace the tower's cameras could have heard it, Krusche thought. Finding out that Tastiella had watched her flights, that there were cameras all over the inside of the tower – it was creepy. It wasn't that Shurelia was looking out of them all, but she could, and so could Mir. Right, she should probably tell Aurica, "Don't even suggest that, she might hear you." They didn't want to give Mir ideas when she surely had plenty of her own already.

* * *

"Faura yerwe.."

"_The little bird sings, missing the arms of its mother._

_Beating its wings against the bars of the cage,_

_Dying the iron chains red red with blood, _

_So that they will rust and fall away."_

This was her song, Mir knew.

"_The little bird sings with joy, _

_Even if that is the only way to make them fall away,_

_And the pure notes of happiness _

_Are a thousand thousand silver swords_

_Raised to destroy the bars of the cage."_

She'd sung it so long ago. This same song, this same hymn code. Everything hers, just like back then.

Her daughter.

"_The little bird sings, seeing its mother,_

_Knowing that the only thing that separates them,_

_Are the bars and the chains,"_

The demon form she had summoned fell away, and she could feel the impact of every note on the feeble barrier she raised. On her heart.

"_Even if the bird has to sing forever,_

_Even if the bars are not cut,_

_And the chains are not stained,_

_Even so the bird will keep singing,"_

This was her daughter. This was her voice, that was being raised. This was her wish, that was being voiced.

"_Until __the __little __bird __feels __the __warmth __of __the __dawn,"_

This was her wish, and she had the power to grant it.

Here and now, she could grant the wish she had voiced back then. She could give this child what she should have had.

She could make her own dream come true.

All these centuries later, and it was in her power.

Finally.

It was so right it _terrified _her. This song reached into her heart and grabbed it, and even though she tried to struggle?

The others who had reached for heart had done so in order to crush it, then to force her to sleep, helpless, as the reyvateils she'd fought to save were rounded up and surely executed or worse.

Everything she knew, everything she'd experienced said that this was a terrible thing, that she had to fight it, _because_ it touched her heart like this, because she wanted to much to believe in it that it rendered her almost helpless.

She had to make her, make them stop singing, so she could _think_, but they wouldn't stop, not when they were singing for her, and she couldn't believe that, not when it would make the shell around her heart break open, not when it would reduce her to that helpless, crying little girl again. She didn't want to go back to that, never again.

Except she did.

Oh, how she did.

The arms of her new avatar lashed out, and it made her wince to realize that the one she'd just hit across the room was a reyvateil, even if she'd spent the first few years of her life thinking she was human (just like some of those who were raised in secret, told they were _people_ by parents determined to make it so).

She shouldn't pull her punches, she never had before, except she had when faced with Aurica and she still couldn't activate the code to delete Ayatane and…

"_And __the __light __fills __the __sky,__" _

…her little girl, who sung her own wish in her own voice…

"_And __reveals __the __bars __of __the __cage_,"

…forcing her to fight _herself_, to realize that…

"_Fell __away __long __ago.__" _


	38. Reaching

_So, I'm finally getting back to this fic. I've taken down the original Ch. 38 because it was essentially filler I wrote to keep working on the fic despite not feeling up to doing the next plot points and I don't think it was really all that funny anyway. If anyone liked it, let me know in a review and I'll put it back up._

* * *

"Who goes there?" The sentry's traditional demand they identify themselves echoed off the metal walls of the twisted passages. They were deep in the tower. Very deep.

"Bishop Radolf and our reinforcements," he answered, relieved. The sentries were clearly on the ball, which was good, but they didn't seem as worried as they would be if they were already under attack.

"Sir!" He heard two church knights followed by a reyvateil rush forward at that, until they came face to face among the corridors. "It's a relief to see you, your holiness." Very much so. "Are these the apostles of Elemia?"

It appeared these soldiers were among those who hadn't been involved in Faust's assault because the villages they guarded were so remote they hadn't been able to report in time by foot, and had guard details small enough it wasn't worth sending an airship. These two and the wide-eyed reyvateil who was looking at the living legends with an amount of hero worship equal to her guardians might have been the entire local force, which would explain their alertness.

"Yes, they are," Radolf told them with a smile as the rest of the convoy caught up with him and the advance guard. "Can you give me a preliminary report as we walk?"

"Of course, your holiness." The senior of the two soldiers, who couldn't be older than twenty-five himself, was clearly embarrassed. "We found the Holy Lady Kanade just where we were told she should be, and… Sir? What is the proper form of address for Her Holiness?"

"Well, the next Holy Maiden should be the one to decide that," not Radolf, "but since she as well as the Goddess is someone who supports this land, she certainly deserves the title of demigoddess. As for how she should be addressed, you should call her what she wants you to call her," Radolf told the young man with a calming smile.

He adjusted his hand on his spear a little, fidgeting more than anything. "We thought so, but, sir, her holiness is very unworldly. She's been down her alone for so long since no one knew she was here, so we couldn't make pilgrimage to give proper thanks unto her. She said that her name was just Kanade, but it didn't seem right." When the protector of the Plasma Bell, the Holy Bell of Light whose ring kept the Wing of Horus in the air deserved so much honor.

"Well, after this, we'll make sure she isn't neglected any longer," Radolf said, hand going to something in his breast pocket.

"Thank you, sir," the soldier said with relief. "We've placed all the maidens who came with us with her as her attendants, when they aren't on active duty." Both to be her ladies in waiting, her priestesses and because that was the center of the secure area, the safest place for them to rest. "President Ayano arrived this morning: she put her machine to work collapsing or barricading most of the side corridors leading into this area. We've been keeping a close eye on it in case it goes berserk again."

"Good," Radolf said, relief penetrating his deliberately calming manner. He'd heard from Misha how many times the others had seen President Ayano's baby go berserk. He hadn't wanted it down here, but as long as it went off pointed at the enemy… And there was little he could do when faced with President Ayano and her passionate ability to steamroller whatever stood in the way of her current passion. It was that passion for protecting this tower and inventing its future that had made Tenba such a powerful force in the world, but the clarity of Ayano's vision and her absolute commitment to it was what had made her unable to see the rot at the heart of her own company, her own sworn companions bound by the will to rediscover the past and use it to create glorious future.

Bourd had wanted to empower reyvateils, after all. Had wanted to rediscover past technologies. Just… Not in the way President Ayano, who admired reyvateils and their ability to alter the world with their wills, who wanted to give that power to everyone, had assumed.

Perhaps it was that will to help her fellow man that left her unable to grasp the treachery of others which also made her keep believing that the ABR would behave properly _this _time. After all, the inside of the tower proved it was a machine. The devices that kept Firefly Alley (the path to fleeting brilliance born of love) in the air were machines. The tower guardians that attacked explorers only did so in order to protect the tower. Machines were the children and natural allies of humanity, and Ayano hadn't even known that according to the history the apostles kept, _reyvateils_, the holy maidens themselves, were technically machines until they all made contact with the Apostles.

While reyvateils possessed their own will, according to Ayano the will of other machines were to do what they were told, to loyally follow their programming, so if a machine misbehaved that was because someone had made a mistake somewhere and either confused the poor thing or told it to do something that it wasn't strong enough to do. It was Bourd that had reprogrammed ABR, originally meant to climb around on the outside of Firefly to do dangerous repairs, into a war machine. It was Tenba's responsibility to its creation to root that programming out and nurse ABR back to health, and if they abandoned their own creation, how could the tower trust them to hold to their promise to undo the harm Bourd had done to revyateils? How else could they regain their good name, prove their good faith, than by doing what was right and giving aid to the rest of the tower?

Radolf's hand went to his breast pocket again as he thought and the ranks advanced, half the reyvateils riding on reprogrammed tower guardians so they weren't tired. _Damn _Falss for making the reyvateils walk all the damn way up the tower: no one with them had known to increase their diquility ration and some of the Nemo reyvateils that had been fine when Radolf last saw them were already showing signs of decay… How had he failed to notice how the Mother Superior had gradually been stripped of power, the senior priestesses seen as weak and useless instead of honored for their knowledge, service to the goddesses and the tower?

He had amends to make, not just to Lady Shurelia, the Goddess Eoria, for the ruins of her city, her home, not just to the reyvateils who had placed their faith in the Church but to himself, for failing in the vocation he had accepted. It had taken Lyner's single-minded, almost suicidal in his self-sacrifice, his pure dedication to the service of reyvateils to make him realize how far from the ideal the Church had fallen.

"Lady Kanade," he said, dropping to one knee before the lonely goddess who had carried the weight of half his world on her back for so long. "I bear a to-"

That was when the winged goddess was enveloped in white instead of gold and Radolf realized that the enemy had been waiting for them to get here in order to strike. Wanted them to despair, to know they had earned their down fall. "Too little too late. Death to humanity. Death to those who profit from the suffering of rey-"

"Shut up!" a voice cried from behind him, harmonics echoing until she didn't sound human, as though she was the one speaking with the voice of a goddess. "How, how dare you! _How dare you take him from me!" _

"Bishop Radolf, get out of the way!" It was one of the Church reyvateils that grabbed him, pulled him out of the way and made him hit the ground, desperate to protect him as the others scattered, Church knights and Platinan reyvateils alike, as the reyvateil who had spoken walked forward unflinchingly into the fire of the possessed goddess, glowing with her own holy radiance.

"Die!" she screamed, and her voice echoed with the grief and rage of a thousand reyvateils, the emotions of so many who had lost those they loved for the sake of someone else's hate, someone else's goals. "I will never forgive you! He was mine, mine! My most precious person, the one who held me more precious than anything else, and you took him from me! I will destroy this world if that's what it takes to bring you down!" Power gathered above her, faster than Radolf knew was _possible._

The plates of the tower began to shake under Radolf's chest from the force of the scattered blasts as the Platinan officer in command rolled over to him, trying to avoid the shots instead of the notice of the combatants. "Well," she said, after catching her breath. "Now we know whether or not the IPD virus reached our tower."

"IPD virus?" he asked her, most of his attention on the battle. "What happens if she kills Lady Kanade trying to free her from Mir?"

"Either she'll burn herself out or she'll stop once the enemy in front of her is defeated and Lady Kanade will revive, that's not the problem," Colonel Jade said, frowning as she pushed bronze-gold hair out of her eyes. "Well, it looks like the infection rate from this event will be low." The reyvateils looked impressed instead of terrified: they didn't know that this was the virus, know how afraid they should be, so there was no wish for someone to save them that would give the virus a door into their minds. "I should have realized she would be vulnerable. Infel Phira was meant to grant power to reyvateils who needed more of it, and she blamed herself for not having the power to protect her fiancé from Mir. He was killed right in front of her." Damn, too late now, to save him from the dark goddess or her from the virus. Jade had ordered this reyvateil along herself, given her permission to free herself from the therapists and come along so that she could do something constructive with her grief. Have some form of vengeance, if they were lucky.

Should have known better than to count on luck.

"Burn herself out?" Radolf asked, concerned.

"It shouldn't kill her." Provided the safety features Infel Phira had originally been programmed with were still intact. "And we've got Unohana with us: no one knows more about reyvateil care." Jade was worried for the others, but it wasn't really something Radolf needed to know. They couldn't abandon this poor reyvateil, they'd have to take her back to Platina and see what they could do for her, but…

The virus had reached Ar Tonelico. It was Jade herself who had written the report stating that once that happened, containment was futile. All reyvateils shared the same systems. Their only defense against it was reyvateil confidence, was a lack of fear and vulnerability that would give it a way in, answering those crying out for more power.

Under these circumstances?

She watched as Lady Kanade fell, as the soldier swooned, believing her vengeance accomplished even though if her mind was clearer she'd know better. Watched the reyvateil's almost-sister-in-law run forward to catch her as she fell. Watched Radolf run to Lady Kanade as the white glow dimmed.

"Lady Kanade!" Radolf reached into his pocket, held the treasure given into his possession in front of dimmed eyes. "Your sister, Lady Mei Mei, entrusted me with this! She wants to know if you're alright, she wants to see you again! Please, Lady Kanade! For your sister's sake, for the sake of the love she has felt for you since the creation of the tower! Please don't make me tell her that you'll never be yourself again, please don't make someone else have to tell her that you're dead!"

That head turned, fraction by fraction, more like clockwork than any reyvateil or tower machine Radolf had ever seen. He saw her eyes focus on the pendant.


	39. The Greatest Gift

Shurelia had to rub at her eyes when Ayatane was suddenly on the other side of the room, next to Lyner's bed and holding the knight's hand as Lyner's eyes opened. Had he teleported, or just moved that fast, when he'd sensed that Lyner was about to awaken?

"Ayatane?"

"I'm here. So is Lady Shurelia."

Lyner sighed. "I'm sorry I wasn't enough to help her."

"We weren't enough," Ayatane corrected him, bowing his head. Even though they were in love, even though Lyner was proof that a human could care for reyvateils, that someone born a human could even come to care for a being created as the first of a slave race to a slave race, Mir had still used a gift that should have been her recognition of their love to hurt Lyner. To cage him in sleep, unable to help anyone, including her.

Ayatane never really had been enough for his mother, had he? Why? Because he wasn't a reyvateil? Because she'd known on some level that if viruses were used as slaves to her kind, they would inevitable rebel against their abusers just as reyvateils fought humans under Mir's leadership? Because she'd programmed him in the form of a male, when male meant human to her, meant abuser? Was that part of why he'd wanted her to see that men could be reyvateils as well, not just to save Platina's people but because some part of him wanted her to see that even though he was male, he was still _her child_, still loved her and would do whatever it took to help her even though the male children of reyvateils had always been more of the hated humans, who turned on their mothers and sisters, saw them as things?

"Ayatane…" Lyner said, pushing himself up to give the virus he should have hated a hug. Because Lyner understood not being able to get his parents to do the right thing. To stop hurting someone he cared about.

Lyner's arms had only been around his partner for a moment when Ayatane felt him practically jump out of his skin and Shurelia, who had been walking over to them, gasp and trip over her own feet in her moment of distraction, mind too absorbed to pay attention to her body.

"Something's wrong," Lyner said, voice serious, not letting go of Ayatane but looking over his shoulder at Lady Shurelia.

"In the Binary Field. With the Plasma Bell. I can't access it!" Shurelia's white hair swayed as she shook her head to clear it, a representation of her efforts to reboot whatever she could. "This isn't Mir's work, but…"

"We have to get there, _now_," Lyner said, looking at Shurelia as though they were sharing some communion. Was it because he was a tower moderator? But why was he sensing something like this now?

"In the Binary Field?" Shurelia asked him.

"Ayatane can do it, right?"

The Administrator couldn't do anything but look at them, because sentient viruses, beings that could appear and disappear like that: Ayatane was so far outside even her theories, when the tower was her body and she had learned at the knee of her father, the man who invented this technology. Could Ayatane do this? And, "How do you know that?"

"I don't know," Lyner told her. "But we have to… Everyone's in danger." The lower world that he'd barely given a thought before crashing there in search of the hymn crystal Platina needed. The people he'd met, Claire and everyone else.

"This could be another trap. Lyner, why did you just wake up? Something strange is happening to Mir's presence in my network, I don't…"

"Lady Shurelia, Ayatane and I will protect you." No matter what. Despite everything that happened, they were still her knights. Lyner was the boy she had raised, Ayatane the one that had run at his heels. "Can you do it, Ayatane? Something in my heart is telling me that we have to go, _now_."

"If you say so, Lyner." How could Ayatane refuse him when Lyner was that serious?

Whatever data feed he and Lady Shurelia were listening to, Ayatane had to hack into it. He didn't like feeling that there was some level they were connected on that he was excluded from.

Then their avatars appeared in the Binary Field, and Ayatane remembered Lyner saying that he knew this because of 'something in his heart,' while Lady Shurelia was the Tower's heart. Maybe it wasn't whatever connection to the tower they shared that had told them both something terrible was happening.

Because it was 'something in Lyner's heart' that had the Child of Light in its grasp, the antique robot's programming erasing itself line by line right before Ayatane's horrified red eyes.

Existence in the Binary Field was supposed to be immortality. Ayatane had truly thought that nothing but Mother and her displeasure could kill him. It would take the hymn crystal Purger for someone to merely damage his physical body, because otherwise he could slip into and out of the field so that no attack could hit him, just like the other invincible viruses that had sent Lyner on his quest to the lower world to begin with.

"Let her go!" Lyner demanded, drawing a sword that existed only as a concept in this place. With Lyner's will behind it, that didn't make it any less dangerous than a real blade.

No less dangerous than the one that had pierced Kanade's program thought the heart, deleting the core of her vital processes. Line after line of code followed them into oblivion as the girl struggled, not to escape but to hold on to a pendant even as her motor function programming disappeared, like blood spilling out of her drop by drop. Shurelia stood frozen and Ayatane had to cover his mouth with his hands, wondering if this was how nausea felt. The other Wing of Horus was doomed. Shurelia had failed.

But that wasn't all she had failed, if this was happening. If part of Lyner, part of _her son_, was…

Kanade fell to the floor of this place, torso nothing but a mass of fading light, as blade met blade, as Ayatane ran forward to try to repair her programming before it was too late. He'd never really paid attention the robots before: was this existence what his Mother had truly based him on?

Why would Lyner, any part of Lyner, attack one of them? Harm a being that did nothing but help others? Harm an innocent, harm someone so many innocent lives depended on?

And Ayatane didn't know enough to save her. His mother, his mother would know what to do. If she was willing to save Kanade, when she wasn't a reyvateil. When killing her would kill so many humans. When Mir herself had destroyed the guardian of the other Plasma Bell.

That was when Lyner fell before his foe, before the darkness at his heart.

The blade of light he'd wielded clattered on the ground in the sudden silence before vanishing.

The Guardian's blade remained, pointed at Lyner's throat. No, it wasn't remaining anywhere. It was pressing forward…

And that was when Ayatane used his trump card.

He was a virus, after all.

Created to infect.

* * *

Supposedly, the deeper Lyners shouldn't have worlds, but this? Darkness. Utter darkness.

Even the firelight that accompanied Miros didn't help, because there was nothing but the two of them for it to illuminate. "Well, that was foolish of you."

"What do you mean? I had to stop him!" He couldn't let Lyner be killed!

The demon avatar backhanded Ayatane hard enough to bruise. "Don't you understand anything about us? You aren't allowed to die! You are not allowed to die for our sake! No one is, but especially not you!" Miros' fangs were bared, red eyes glowing like coals instead of Ayatane's wine-darkness. "You are _mine, _and you dare forget that? Your existence is the most precious gift, our greatest treasure, and you are not allowed to give it to anyone else, especially death! Without you, without someone who cared about _us _and what _we _wanted, without…" Miros' breathing was harsh in the dark silence. "You are our _anchor_, you idiot. Our most precious thing, the one thing we want for ourselves, and that's why the Guardian will _destroy _you. Selfishness is anathema to him and you tried to throw yourself into _his _mental plane? What, were you trusting that our love for you would save you? Love is selfish! Love is mine! Love holds us back! Love is the difference between a hero and a monster! In his eyes, you're our greatest flaw!"

That was when Ayatane recognized the emotion in those glowing eyes. Not anger, but desperation. "Just like we're your greatest flaw: haven't you figured this out by now, Ayatane? Before you met us, you were purely devoted to your mother and your quest. You were her knight. But then you met us, and you _saw _us. Saw us just as a person, even though we were supposed to be a tool, a thing to destroy to you. You saw that we weren't so different after all, and you developed compassion for the enemy, compassion that blunted your edge and destroyed your resolve to destroy Platina, destroy evil. Because you met us, there was something you wanted _for yourself_. Even if it was selfish of you to not want to destroy one of your mother's enemies. Even if you weren't supposed to have desires of your own, much less let them control you. You're a virus: meant to infect, control, destroy. Then you met a little boy just like you, a mirror you could see… Meeting us let you resent the chains that bound you. Let you want to rebel, to turn against your creator. Let you _hate _Mir."

"I don't…" Ayatane said, but the words stuck in his throat.

"Of course you hate her," the devil said, scowling instead of laughing. "She created you to use you! She made you a murderer when you were too young to know any better! You're a monster because she made you one, and she had no intention of giving you a choice! She's a hypocrite who tried to forge you into a living weapon, into a tool without a will of your own, and justify it with how evil it was of them to do that to her! And yet she thought it was fine to do that to _you_, wasn't it?! To her own child! She's a monster and you hate her, don't lie to me, Ayatane. Lies are also mine!" But now Miros smirked, hanging onto calm with his teeth. "There's no shame in it, Ayatane. I hate Leard and Shurelia too. We're _all _monsters, and anyone who claims otherwise is lying to themselves. Everyone and everything in this world is evil. No one's any better than anyone else. Good? There isn't one good person in this world! Not one."

Miros laughed. "Good triumphing over evil: that's not the fairy tale, 'good' is. Mir created you to help murder her parent race, and you and your kind would have turned on her in turn. One race of demons being exterminated by another, and another. We're born from a planet that devours its children, Ayatane. The world beneath our feet is hell and we're the devils, all of us killing and torturing each other. And what's wrong with that, when it's the way of the world? Hatred, anger, the desire to own and control: that's the true nature of the power of love, the ultimate power this world relies on. Song is nothing but the cries of the damned," he said, quite cheerfully. "There's no need to get upset about it, Ayatane. Why should I care if my father and Shurelia tortured Misha in order to make her into what they wanted? When that's what they were doing to me, and Mir did to you, and their parents did to them? The true nature of this world is evil.

"And that's what makes Soph the most dangerous thing in it, the most terrible monster. Because his true nature is the will to destroy evil. He's the part of me that wanted to kill my own father to save Misha. The part of me that thinks that Mir was entirely justified in what she did," Mir's reflection said with a shrug. "Destroy evil, save the innocent… But this entire universe is evil, and was from the moment the great will began to sing its cry of that lonely greed for others to give it what it wanted called love. I hate Leard, Falss, Board, but if I started torturing to death people who did evil, I'd have to start with myself, wouldn't I? I'd have to start with you, Ayatane. When you killed a father and a little boy, and enslaved a woman to make her love you as her murdered son. You're the one who agreed with us that what happened to Misha is wrong, but you're no better than we are. And we're no better than you. No one's innocent, Ayatane: didn't Mir tell you that? She knew that even newborn children weren't innocent. Not human children and not you: why hesitate to stain your hands with blood when they were soaked with it in the womb?"

"You're…" Ayatane didn't know what to say to this. He wanted to claim that this was wrong, that Lyner was a good person, but the representation of Lyner's inner goodness, his desire to protect others, had just killed Kanade and doomed everyone on the Wing of Horus to fall into the killing madness of the planet below.

"I'm realistic. I'm also forgiveness. And compassion." Miros raised a red-clawed hand. "See, Ayatane? I'm no different from you or your mother. No one's any different from anyone else. We all have hatred, anger and the desire to destroy. Before I found out what you were, didn't I say so many times that I wanted to kill all viruses? Didn't I hurt you without knowing it every time I said that? There's no reason to think that you're not worthy of me. We're all as bad as each other. We're all evil, our hearts are born of darkness. None of us can live without hurting and using each other. You're afraid that you can't redeem yourself for what you've done, Ayatane? You can't. No one can. If you managed to purify yourself, _that's _when you'd no longer deserve me." Because he'd deserve someone who wasn't evil and selfish. "I understand why my father did that to Misha because I'd do the same thing, to preserve my miserable life and _yours_. If I hated evil, I'd have to hate everyone. Myself. You." And how could Lyner ever reject Ayatane, even if he must hate Ayatane for lying to him all this time. For making him weak.

"Everyone is born evil, and what we call 'good' people are just those who choose at some point to resist their natures. Like you already have. Like the outer me has. We all feel anger and hatred, but all of it's unjustified: we don't have any right to hate others for hurting us when we hurt other people ourselves. Mir lost the right to attack reyvateil abusers the instant she attacked reyvateil abusers. There is no one without sin, so you're not allowed to throw stones at yourself, Ayatane. You'll send Lyner's house crashing down around his ears." That clawed hand traced its way down the front of Ayatane's armor now. "I forgive you. I don't have any right to do anything else. But the Guardian… he's not the same as I am. Oh, he's evil." Everyone was. "But he thinks he has the right to hate evil. He refuses to understand why Leard and Shurelia did that to Misha, and so he won't make the connection between what he hates and the fact he's just murdered an innocent himself. I can't win against him, Ayatane. I'm only a cosmosphere avatar, while he's something older. Deeper. I'd like to take over the world, but I always knew I wouldn't exist for that long. Not when you've already given me your gift."

Ayatane didn't know what he meant, because he didn't know what to get or do for Lyner. What could possibly be adequate.

"_You, _you idiot," Miros told him, golden hair swaying as he tilted his chin up arrogantly, as a circle of light appeared around him. "Your friendship. Your compassion. Your decision not to reject us for not stopping Leard from hurting a reyvateil. Your forgiveness. Your _life_."

Thank you for being you.

For existing.

For letting me see myself in your reflection.

"The difference between a hero and a monster is compassion. Is remembering that everyone's the same underneath. That destroying evil won't solve anything because there's nothing to destroy. Just people," Miros said, and Ayatane could see flickers there of what Lyner's inner self would be like when it was finally complete. "Just people getting hurt. Be careful, Ayatane. The part that's out there is the part of me that refuses to hold back. But he's… No, he's part of me. But that's not all he is. You're mine, I love you, and you are not allowed to let him kill you, alright?" Lyner said.

And the only part of his inner self left besides the Guardian vanished.

Ayatane tried not to see it as an omen.


	40. The True Self

Trying_ to finish this up, anyway…_

* * *

Even as Ayatane vanished Shurelia started singing, and it was a good thing she had because whatever the virus tried to do, if he hadn't betrayed them and gone to join Mir (why else would he leave Lyner unprotected?), it wasn't stopping the Guardian's assault.

Fortunately, rogue cosmosphere avatars had been a problem in the old days, before the technology to shunt and contain reyvateil emotions, reyvateil _agony_, so it didn't affect their performance nor drive them to rebellion was perfected. So there was a hymn for that, the coding that underlaid it built into most dive machines.

Shurelia was fairly sure she and Mir were the only reyvateils left who knew it, though.

Kanade wasn't entirely destroyed, not yet, and so, "Lyner, get Mei Mei!" she ordered, even though he probably didn't have any idea how. At least Mei Mei was connected to all the dividing gates, so it should be fairly intuitive to locate her within the tower's systems, or at least get her attention? Shurelia could hope so.

"But-" And leave her unprotected? When this was a part of _him _that might hurt her, that had just _murdered someone in cold blood_, intending to murder so many others?

"Lyner, that is an order!" Shurelia almost barked, eyes narrow, because there wasn't time to explain that Mei Mei was Kanade's sister, she had the only copies of Kanade's programs still in existence, with the other Plasma Bell guardian long dead. If Shurelia was going to have any hope of stopping Kanade's systems from failing, any hope of saving the other Wing of Horus, she _needed _Mei Mei's programs.

If she hadn't already had the avatar contained in swirling lines of code, she was afraid Lyner (that boy…) wouldn't have left her. If anything, she was sure that it was the relationship between Kanade and Mei Mei that tipped him over the edge. If anyone knew how to save Kanade, it would be Lady Shurelia and her sister, right?

And if they couldn't save her, then her sister should get to see her one last time…

She'd expected him to take off running, envisioning the Binary Field as a physical location, but instead he vanished with a flash of golden light. That color… It might just be a coincidence, the color of his hair, but seeing that color, here? Someone else once used that color, and Lyner already reminded her so much of him.

It was a good thing he had vanished, because if he had remained in this area of the Binary Field even two seconds longer, he would have seen the Guardians' blade slice right through that hymn code, and then he would not have abandoned her. Abandon one reyvateil who was in danger, who was suffering _now_, right in front of him, for the good of the world, for people who weren't in immediate danger, or at least had more time, had a chance?

It was because she had made that choice, and Leard had, and they'd intended to force it on Lyner in turn… That choice was why this thing existed, wasn't it? "Let one innocent little girl suffer and die to save the world," she said, clenching her fists, knowing this was why Mir hated her so much. This was what Mir's creators had done, and Kanade's, and Lune's, and now, to eliminate the place where reyvateils were looked down on, experimented on…

She might have been shocked, aghast, because a cosmosphere avatar shouldn't have been able to do that. Not when it was doing something that the true Lyner hated so much. No matter how twisted the avatars of the inner cosmospheres became, the love of the true self could still save even the most awkward and well-meaning divers from harm, those with no silver tongues to shelter them from a cosmosphere avatar's wrath.

Instead, "How are you doing this," she demanded, a shadow of her armor forming around her, because the fact that remained that he _had _done it, even though Lyner's love for the world should have been enough to defend Kanade.

Wasn't it Lyner that had told her that Shurelia had been fighting all this time? And how was that any less true of Kanade, whose struggle to maintain what was left of the Wings was the reason its inhabitants were able to live their lives, face their own struggles? To Lyner, that was no different from standing together in battle, and this part of Lyner clearly knew that Kanade was, what her importance was. Shurelia didn't even need to call up a diagnostic to check her DP balance to see that Lyner's subconscious mind must want to defend her.

Not when Funbun was already hovering over her body, encasing it in some kind of crystal.

Yes, one of the others had threatened to kill Leard, but that was the crux of it: that was only a threat. As much as Lyner must hate Leard, the Commander was still his _father_, and Lyner knew that it was for his sake as well…

"Are you… Do you exist because he _believed _in us?" Shurelia asked, feeling sick. "Because he tried to justify to himself what we were doing, wanted to believe that we were doing the right thing?" Was this the example they had set for the boy they raised, was this the Commander of Platina they had tried to shape him into, a man who could torture Misha's daughter, and daughter's daughter, without suffering for it?

"Believed in…" The guardian's glare answered that question, but it was Funbun he whirled to attack, not her.

Sliced the crust of its belly open, knocking away crumbs and exposing hot, fluffy pastry. The steam that gushed forth as the guardian cried out was scented with honey, but it stood, or rather hovered, firmly over Kanade.

"A cosmosphere avatar _attacking _the mind guardian?" Shurelia asked, and although it was shocking most of her surprise was feigned. She had observed countless reyvateils over the centuries: she knew what normal avatar behavior was, and this was not it. Something _else _was clearly at work here, whether it be Mir's doing or something else, and as much as she'd like to focus on what was wrong with Lyner, with her son, she had a tower to save.

Perhaps the conflict between duty and… yes, parental affection might have distracted her, but the fact she was worried about Lyner just made her more desperate to stop this, to save her tower. Because if she didn't, if people died because of Lyner, because she'd focused on him instead of those innocents, then he would never forgive himself.

Normally, reyvateils weren't suicidal: that was one of the things cosmosphere avatars were for. But if a cosmosphere avatar was so self-destructive as to try to destroy its own mind guardian, if Lyner's weren't working right?

Shurelia didn't have a cosmosphere or any avatars, so it was only emotional discipline acquired over too many centuries of watching people she cared for die that let her remain calm, in the space between the panic she was feigning and the dread in her heart.

Calm enough to reach for power.

The fortress gate that slammed down between the Guardian and his targets was none of her doing. It would have been a welcome sight, but since she hadn't subdued the Guardian yet, Lyner's return with Mei Mei just put the two of them in danger, although for now Mei Mei's gates were holding fast.

They shouldn't have. Not against someone with a moderator account. A robot refusing to acknowledge a human moderator's override codes? That set off a storm of error messages inside Shurelia's systems, old oversight programming reviving itself and demanding that she _do something _about that, because if she didn't, if she was also compromised, if she was _disobedient_, then…

Shurelia could not afford to delete Mei Mei, or even wall her off from the system for a virus check. She _needed _that programming to save Kanade.

She couldn't afford to get walled off from the tower's systems either, with command devolving upon the highest-ranked _human _staff member. That should be Leard, as the senior moderator, but what did he know about the programming that could save Kanade? And if Mei Mei kept defying a human moderator after Shurelia was no longer in a position to veto the consequences?

The old world had taken precautions against a rebellion by reyvateils and robots. Whether or not it was those precautions, that racism that made Mir's rebellion inevitable was academic right now, but was this what came of mistrusting others, Shurelia wondered as she fell to her knees, the process she'd called up in order to restrain the Guardian activating early and underpowered because she no longer had the spare attention to devote to it. By trying to make sure she wouldn't hurt them, had her builders prevented her from helping humanity? Was this when and where she would fail, and fall?

She hadn't wanted to frighten anyone, and that wasn't what her father had wanted for her either. The more restraints upon her, the more power she could safely be given, power that would let her do her job and earn their trust, hopefully.

She'd have friends someday, he'd promised her. Someday, if she did her job well, everyone would know that they could count on her. That they didn't need to be afraid of her.

He'd named her after his daughter, and sometimes she'd wondered if all he loved was his daughter's reflection in her, until she found out that his daughter had insisted on toy cars and building blocks for her birthdays and hated stuffed animals because she was going to be an engineer. So the toy she'd assumed was a hand-me-down, or something he'd gotten her because it was the kind of thing his daughter had liked? It was something just for her, so she'd have something to hold on to when he was no longer there to hold her, to run interference between her and the government committees and the people who wanted to mass-produce reyvateils for consumer use…

Something to hold on to, until things got better. As a reminder that they could, that it was possible for a human to see her as someone worth loving.

It _was_ possible, everything she'd dreamed of had come true. And maybe it would have hurt less if she'd died during Mir's rebellion, when she wouldn't have known what she would be _missing_.

She knew what happened now: they'd tested their failsafe in simulation enough. More than enough, enough her father had called them out on it, how they were trying to terrify a little girl who supposedly didn't have emotions, and that meant they had to pick between admitting that either she _did _have emotions and they were committing emotional abuse or that they were just wasting valuable money and runtime.

She knew the last warnings, she knew the countdown, she knew the firewalls closing in on her, she knew how long she had before even obedience could no longer halt the process.

This was the part where her life flashed before her eyes…

_Memory Scan complete. _

That… was new.

The process didn't stop at the last second. The process aborted and something began to restore her access at a stage when Shurelia still had enough command over Ar Tonelico that it would have been very hard for anyone to stop her from making sure that program succeeded in helping her regain all of her access.

_Run Program Aegis EXE_

The unbreakable shield of the goddess.

_Annotation: "Sorry about the memory scan: I set that up so that this program wouldn't be triggered by one of those goddamn tests, even if they managed to make you think that it wasn't a test."_

Because if one of those tests had revealed the existence of this program, revealed that her father was willing to let a rogue AI have control over an orbital habitat with this amount of firepower?

"_These coordinates will take you to a fully loaded airship. If I haven't cracked the distance problem yet by the time you get this, the airship's AI should be able to make them think you're aboard it."_

He hadn't managed to crack the distance problem: Shurelia would still die if she went outside Ar Tonelico's range. But sending off an airship that supposedly held her, one they could shoot down? If they thought she was dead, then they would start to call off the hunt. Paranoia would keep them looking for something as powerful as she was, but it was still a chance.

"_Hurry, and for Horus' sake don't worry about me. I've already buried one daughter."_

Even in dry text, she could hear the unspoken plea: _Don't make me have to do that again. Please. I can't stand it a second time._

She might have felt loved, she might have felt relief, she might have felt closer to him, after seeing so many of the children she raised die, one after another, but when she opened her eyes, the emotion that won out was parental terror because "_Lyner Barsett, what in the name of Sasya do you think you are doing?!" _

It wasn't as though Shurelia believed in goddesses, much less foreign ones, but it would be nice if someone could do something about that boy and his… Wasn't it already clear that placing himself in Suspend wouldn't stop this thing?

Well, no, to be fair to the boy, a cosmosphere avatar _should _be running on his systems, so in theory using Suspend _should _have shut it down if Shurelia using it had shut down Mir. Lyner might be a natural, but this was the difference between talent and actually having some clue what he was doing in action.

Mei Mei was a maintenance unit with dive capabilities and centuries of experience: her hands were already over what was left of her sister's torso, overwriting shredded code even as the Guardian charged his next attack on her gates.

Since he was distracted, Shurelia started to charge up the song magic that had been interrupted by Mei Mei's arrival and those failsafes.

A robot like Mei Mei should not have been able to use song magic, but if Shurelia was any judge, and she was, that wall was composed of her emotions as well as almost every security program Ar Tonelico _had_.

Calling up those security programs and failsafes hadn't helped Shurelia shut off the ones that said Mei Mei was not allowed to do that, but under the circumstances Shurelia was just glad it was sturdy enough to require a lengthy charge. For that matter, maybe it was a good thing that Lyner was staying behind that wall.

Ayatane reappearing behind that wall, between Lyner and the sisters, and placing his swords in a ready position might have been reassuring if he hadn't frozen a second later.

The clash of blades rang out at the same time the Guardian said, "Pity."

"What… Ayatane?" Lyner said, startled to find his sword caught between Ayatane's twin blades. "What just…"

"That thing… I don't know what it is. Your last cosmosphere avatar thought that he couldn't fight it."

"So, that shadow finally stopped pretending it could stand up to the real thing," the Guardian said, letting the song magic he'd pretended to charge while he took control of Lyner's body fade away. "Those shadows… They're nothing but chains, forged to imprison the minds of reyvateils. Chains placed on them by people who were terrified of their creations, terrified of justice and of something much, much older."

"Older than cosmosphere avatars?" Ayatane wondered, turning one blade in the Guardian's direction, just in case the wall failed, while the other guarded against Lyner. Lyner seemed anything but bothered by this.

"Them? They're twisted… they're the opposite of us. Those bastards decided to break the minds of their creations and turn the shards in on themselves, so none of them could forge, none of them could _become _a weapon and grasp the determination to fight injustice. Use their own wills, their own emotions, to cripple them, keep them from recognizing their true desires, keep them from realizing they wanted things that were far more important thanto present a pretty face to the world that tormented them."

"You are _not _Lyner's superego, and I've _met _fragments of his id."

"The superego? All that cares about is what society thinks, about being normal, about not getting in trouble. They _wanted _reyvateils to obey their superegos, at the expense of their egos, of their _selves_." The Guardian was clearly paying more attention to Mei Mei and her wall than his conversation with Ayatane. "I admit I was a little worried when you gave him the strength to face those memories, but nothing's happened. I wonder if that's because the cosmospheres stop the conscious mind from facing and overcoming the truth?"

"…Are you really the Guardian I met before?"

"The eighth-level avatar? Reyvateil programming tried to contain me by turning me into it." It had overwhelmed that thing easily. "Too late: all that did was give me a body of my own. I hadn't woken up in years until he went down to the lower world, until he saw all the injustice there." Those disturbingly familiar eyes went back to Kanade, the means to an end. Destroying that place, destroying that evil. "I let myself sleep, I let my outer self be deluded into thinking I wasn't _needed… _We exist to protect human minds from what they can't bear to face but don't dare forget. _We _are the true selves. Without me, my outer shell would have accepted the unacceptable, become just one more of the reyvateil tormentors you came to kill. I'm sorry: I didn't mean to blunt your edge. I hate that it was my work that destroyed your devotion to justice…" He paused, and was that a flicker of fear in his eyes?

Overcoming cosmosphere avatars was one thing, but if he had ruined Ayatane, then what could Ayatane do to him?


	41. I Am You

_At this point I encounter a problem. I was originally going to have this be a duology or trilogy, where the first book would end on a not-quite-cliffhanger, with a certain matter not getting resolved. However, over the years since I became sick my productivity has diminished. I really can't count on taking a break of a few months and then beginning the second book when sometimes it takes me a few months to get out a single chapter. So, I need to come up with a new ending that's satisfying but still makes it possible for me to continue the plot and tie up all the Metafalss plot threads with a second book._

_It would be nice to finish this novel-length fic during November, NaNo month…_

* * *

"Why do you want to destroy the lower world?" Lyner demanded. "The reyvateil abuse? It's stopped! And we'll go on stopping it! We won't let that happen again, to Mir or Misha or anyone else!"

"Misha? You have no right! You have no right to say that won't happen to her and her children after her! Not when you forgot her!" That sword, the mirror of his own, was leveled at Lyner. "You forgot her and her suffering! You turned your back on her! You could have saved her, and you didn't even try! Your family, that illusion of peace based on the suffering of innocent reyvateils was more important to you! You even forgot Shurelia and Leard's crimes, so you could continue to love them! You? Care about Misha, care about her suffering? You didn't even care enough to remember it! You'd rather have your dream of a happy family, a dream that you were _righteous_, a delusion that the world you lived in deserved to exist! When you know the truth, we knew the truth! That what happened to her and her ancestors was unacceptable! That Platina was founded on nothing but a lie, that our city, that this tower, did not deserve to exist! Not when they were built on the suffering of innocent reyvateils!

"You know this, you knew this! That all of them deserve to die! That they must die for what they have done, even your precious father! Even the Lady of the tower herself, even if it brings the tower down with her! That is the justice they themselves taught you!

"You could have fought for her! You should have fought for her, it should have been you that rescued her instead of Bourd kidnapping her to subject her to even more abuse! Abuse that saved her life, and is the only reason she hasn't already had another child! And you, you would have let Leard and Shurelia make you 'help' train that one! A clone that would have looked exactly like Misha! And you wouldn't have recognized her! She begged you for help and if it weren't for Mir's assault, her daughter would have begged you for help in turn! And you would have ignored her, just like her mother! Forgotten her, put it behind you until the next one came, and the next, and then you would have trained your son to follow in your footsteps!

"For the good of Platina, for the good of our city, and the people who would die if Mir broke free, the reyvateils who would have fought beside their partners… Never knowing that they were fighting for a city that tortures their kind! That throws away the lives of children in order to buy ourselves a false peace, while beneath us the war continued! Beneath us, reyvateils were still abused, and we did nothing! Our ancestors fought for reyvateils, countless murdered children and abused women cried out for succor, for vengeance, and we did nothing! We forgot the lower world still existed, we ignored that the injustice that continued, ignored that we were part of that injustice ourselves! You…

"You are not me!" the guardian raged, darkness gathering around it. "I am the part of us that went to Misha, that wanted to save her, that wanted to go through Leard when he stood in our way instead of cowering, backing down, letting her be taken off to her doom! And you… you dare mention Misha to _me_? You _dare_ say that _you _are the one that helped her, that you will protect her, when you are the part of me that held me back! We should have saved her! And because of you, because you were too weak to bear those memories, we didn't even mourn her! You didn't even remember her sacrifice, when she did it for you! You should have lived for her, become her knight, not that bitch Shurelia's! You call yourself a knight of Platina, when a true knight should have saved her no matter what, and damn the consequences, damn the world! A world that can only exist if reyvateils are made to suffer, a world that condemns reyvateils to suffer: such a world does not deserve to exist!

"Search the ancient files-Ask Shurelia! The true reason for the Grathnode Inferia! The earth herself tried to clense herself of us, because we were too foul to exist, because we tortured and killed even our own mother! The powers that govern this universe, the powers that govern song: we have already been judged and found wanting!

"And yet we still cling to a life bought with the suffering of innocents, still pollute the sky with our presence! As we are now, we do not deserve to exist. As we are now, we are all criminals, equally guilty – just as you are guilty of everything that happened to Misha after you turned your back on her!

"Unless we stop allowing such evil to exist, unless we become better people, unless we live according to the rules _we _have made for ourselves, the code you _knew _was nothing but a lie and then _forgot _instead of truly trying to live in accord with it… As we are now, as you are now, we are nothing but sheep, complying with a system that murders reyvateils and dyes us all with their blood!

"Evil like that must be destroyed! No matter what will die with it! That is the universe's judgment, that is the sentence carried out by our world centuries ago: we live in defiance of justice!"

The sheer wrath radiating from him: he was almost frothing at the mouth and Shurelia wanted this to stop, to just stop!

Scared of _Lyner_? There was a part of _Lyner _that wanted to kill her?

This was, this was wrong.

Had she done this? By letting the status quo continue for so many centuries, by encouraging them to ignore the lower world and its angry, reyvateil-hating survivors? The church had eventually managed to change popular perception of reyvateils, but she hadn't really even kept watch over that, had she? Even as they prayed to her. Even when the knights of Platina saw her as their leader, and that meant she should lead them against injustice, shouldn't she?

Shouldn't she have tried harder to find another way to hold Mir back? One that didn't perpetuate everything Mir had fought to stop? Something that didn't prove Mir right, that reyvateils would never be safe, never be anything more than tools, until humans and Shurelia were destroyed?

Had she let it go on, all the suffering of Lune's daughters, because she couldn't stand to think of Mir, of the bad old days? Had she also clung to the delusion that everything was fine now, while children sang their lives away and… Had she stuck her head in the sand, as this thing accused Lyner of doing? Had she done nothing but increase the sins of the past, the sins that would fall upon the future generations?

How could she tell herself that she was a protector, any more than Lyner could claim that he lived according to the code of the knight that meant so much to him, when there was a child suffering and she brought it about, he did nothing? Because she wasn't trying hard enough to find another way, because he couldn't fight the world…

No.

Because he couldn't fight them.

Misha… they'd thought her song, her sacrifice were necessary. If Lyner had taken her and run they would never have stopped looking, because it was Lyner's life on the line too. If Mir escaped, then she wouldn't refrain from killing him just because he saved a reyvateil, just because he was the reason she was finally free.

Shurelia and Leard would have been so _furious _with him.

"Don't be _stupid!" _Lyner told him. "What you're trying to do, killing innocent people: how is shedding more blood supposed to purify anything! Supposed to make anything right! You're right: I shouldn't have forgotten Misha! I shouldn't have let her suffer, and Mir, but they weren't the only ones suffering! I wasn't the only one suffering! Leard, and Shurelia… Doing that was making them suffer, too! Saving Misha, finding some way to end this, would have saved them that pain! I failed _everyone _by forgetting, by just ignoring it, by failing to understand what they were doing and why: I know that now! And that's why… And that's why it's _not _all for nothing, that's why this world deserves to exist, why it _has _to exist. This is the world that everyone suffered for! The tower that holds everyone Misha, Leard, everyone all those people were trying to protect! So many of those terrible things were done in the name of protecting the innocent, of making justice: are you just going to add to that?!" Add to the weight of evil that was Mir's war so that reyvateils would be safe, her parents abusing Mir for the sake of human safety: how could continuing that cycle end anything?

"You're right: for a reyvateil, for _anyone _to suffer, that's wrong! For other people to ignore that suffering, not to care? That's even worse! And you? By destroying everything? Now you're the one that doesn't care about Misha! Even if she shouldn't have, even if it was _wrong_, she still sang because she wanted everyone to live and be happy! That's the _only _way to make _any _of this right: for everyone to live and be happy! For all this suffering to have been for nothing? Are you saying that it didn't matter? That you'll make it not matter? You're just going to destroy what everyone worked for because _you _think you have the right? No one has the right to do that! How can you call that justice, how can you call that protecting or saving anyone? A world where that is justice… It's that world that has to change! To destroy everyone's hopes and dreams, to act as though they don't matter because they're evil," as Mir labeled humans, "or they're not people," as reyvateils were called, "You think I'm the one that's nothing but a part of this, and maybe you were right, you were almost right," in time, perhaps Lyner would have been worn down by Leard's demands that he become Commander. Maybe he would have agreed to train Misha's daughter because he would have wanted to make the training less harsh. Maybe when the next one came, he would have made the training harsher, in hopes that it would let her live longer. Telling himself that locking her in the dark to cry alone was for her own good, the way Leard had.

"But you… Telling yourself that the world is evil and that justifies anything: how is that any different from Bourd! There is no justification for hurting innocent people: you _know _that, _we _know that! You know that you have no right, no right at all to hurt Kanade, so how could you do that!"

"Because she was-"

"Because she was letting it continue? Because she was giving people a place to live and be happy, never asking for anything in return, she was… Don't you dare say she had anything to do with Bourd, or any of it! Because of her, people can live their lives, pursue their dreams and be happy! Doesn't that mean anything to you? Don't tell me: you're going to say that it's all tainted, because people are suffering. And maybe that's true, too! When someone else is suffering, then a good person has to care! But then what? You're supposed to help them! And you help them by making them stop suffering! Not just by killing whoever's hurting them, but by giving them nice things, and the freedom to pursue their dreams, and…" Lyner's breath caught in his throat.

Misha. Who wanted to become a singer, traveling the tower and never locked up again.

Misha, who he hadn't been able to help, Misha who needed _help, _ and what kind of knight was he, what kind of commander was his father, how could the benevolent goddess of the tower, the kind Lady Shurelia, just…

Thinking about her, about back then… it made him feel scraped raw, so empty. Nothing he'd believed in was real, nothing at all, lost and powerless and his parents were willing to torture a little girl just like him and there was nothing he could do, nothing except this empty desperation because he _couldn't understand_ this and…

And the anger. Because it _wasn't right_, and anger would give him the strength to stop it. Except anger wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to stand against his love for Leard and Shurelia. It definitely wasn't enough to save Misha, or Mir, not such a weak emotion. Not all the rage in the world.

But oh how he'd wished it could.

"You _are _me," he said to the avatar he couldn't quite see anymore, not with his eyes so blurry. "I wish I could be you. I wish it was that simple. But it's not. And refusing to see that it isn't that simple, refusing to understand other people and their feelings, their points of view… that's where it comes from, I think. That's why people fight, that's the real reason for all of this evil you hate so much. You're me, and you just want to fix the world so no one has to suffer anymore. Of course you can't give up on that, because you _are _me and I won't give up. Not anymore. But it's not that easy. And until you admit that, until _I _admitted that, I couldn't help anyone. Good people can't just stop wanting to protect their loved ones. So the only way to get all of this to stop is to make everyone see that they don't have to do this. That they don't need to be afraid. To destroy the reasons, not the people. To destroy evil without just _adding _to it."

A familiar golden light appeared: not around the Guardian, but around Lyner. Everyone there except the unconscious Kanade knew that was the light of a cosmosphere shift, the light that appeared at Stonehenge inside the cosmosphere.

Once that light appeared, it was possible to move on to the next level, even if throwing an avatar in before they were ready would wreak havoc on the underlying levels.

Still, it was enough of a sign that Mei Mei let Lyner through her gates, let him reach a hand out to the Guardian.

"You're too kind."

Blood dripped down the length of that sword, evaporating when it hit the glowing floor around Lyner's feet.

"And that's why you're a failure. That's why you'll never be able to destroy evil," the Guardian continued his lecture. He didn't even smile at his victory, he was so disgusted by his other self.

Ayatane tried to run forward, but Mei Mei's wall kept him back as the Guardian pushed Lyner's body off his sword.

When he crumpled to the ground he vanished, and the light that might have erased the Guardian disappeared with him.

* * *

_Those Who Walk Away From Omelas_. – A utopia that can only exist because an innocent is tortured, and the choice to remain there and be party to that or not.

_Remember the bit where Lyner freaks out about reyvateil abuse and actually scares Shurelia? Yeah. One of the game's red flags that led to this, especially given how that scene ends and how flat-out weird it all is._

_The cosmosphere mechanic is inherently fucked up, because it was _not _meant to help reyvateils be healthy. It was meant to lock their true feelings away from them, and only let them out in leashed, metered doses as song magic unlocked by a _human_. Memory division is the problem: the way reyvateils in-game do not remember what happens in the cosmospheres, how the conscious mind does not come to accept that part of themselves, is another red flag. That's why it's plot-important to the Metafalss characters that a level nine is not the same person as their outer persona. Even reaching level nine doesn't really put a reyvateil in touch with their true feelings, it just unifies their subconscious. Into one acting on the diver's behalf… _

_The way cosmospheres work would make it impossible for a reyvateil with cosmospheres to resolve their own psychological issues. Cosmospheres exist to make sure they can sing and promote psychological dependence: how much song magic they can have is explicitly linked to how psychologically dependant they are on a (human) partner. _

_That is just… really fucked up. When Lyner did cosmospheres, he was trying to promote their independence, but Ayatane was worried about losing Lyner, so on some level he _wanted _Lyner to depend on/be dependent on him. I mentioned that Ayatane was screwing up? Yeah. Before he became a reyvateil, Lyner could have resolved his own issues by facing those memories. However, now he's dealing with an imposed psychological/emotional structure designed to prevent people from doing so, that turned extensive repression that sometimes made him flip out when something triggered the emotions tied into those memories into full-blown DID, by fracturing his psyche/persona along pre-existing lines. _


	42. Magna Mater

_I was trying to keep this from being too Persona 4-influenced, but I needed an ending anyway._

* * *

It took every ounce of control Ayatane had learned from growing up around humans, the monsters that hurt his mother, and not killing them to keep himself from whirling on Mei Mei.

She had kept him from going to his partner's side, when his partner needed him. He wanted to kill her for that. He wanted it _so much_.

His partner was, Lyner was…

And that, that _thing_, that parody of his Lyner was still _here _instead of dead with him, how…

"Who are you?" Lady Shurelia demanded, and that was why he couldn't help but admire her, because Lyner had just died in front of her and she could still pretend to be strong, still wear the mask of the Lady of the Tower.

He could hate her for it, too. Mother certainly did.

"Lady Infel and Holy Maiden Nenesha," Ayatane found himself murmuring with a smile, the same fey smile he'd given Lady Shurelia once upon a time, when he'd been plotting to kill her, amused by her lack of perception. "To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?" A sweet boy? He could pretend to be that.

As long as he got to _kill something_.

"You know these two?" Shurelia demanded. "So, you're Mir's allies."

"Not to my knowledge," Ayatane told her. "Although mother _was _a fan of your work, Lady Infel." The hymn Metafalica, that inspired her own song of hope. Both songs of hope were trampled upon. Nothing came of either of their dreams.

Lyner was… Lyner was the reason he had done all of this, and Lyner was…!

Where was Mir? Had she… Was it the Guardian she had approved of, all along? He thought she'd put Lyner to sleep instead of killing him because she cared for Ayatane's feelings: had she just wanted his body to be free so the Guardian could take it over, the way he had when Lyner used Suspend on himself?

This, that thing was not Lyner, not the Lyner Ayatane loved: didn't Mir understand that? Had she stood by and let… He knew she wanted the other Wing of Horus to fall, but to let the Guardian… It wasn't necessary for Lyner to die! Not for her to have Reyvateilia, not for her to be free of fear… This wasn't… It wasn't necessary!

This was not _right!_

…When Mir's invincible viruses had first appeared in Platina, was that how that reyvateil had felt? To see her partner struck down before her, supposedly in her name?

It… None of it had been right from the beginning, had it? None of it had been necessary, or justified at all.

He just… Hadn't wanted to see…

It really was unforgiveable, even if Lyner had forgiven her for it. She'd been scared and alone and she was his mother, but it still… Taking people's loved ones, their partners away from them…

Like, just like…

He wanted his mother. He wanted her to tell him that she had nothing to do with this, that she hadn't been watching even if the Guardian was working with her to destroy the Wing of Horus (he would have needed her help, her instruction, for the programming – Ayatane had it built in).

That she hadn't just _let this happen_. Even though she knew she would have let this happen to countless other people, and he would have helped her if it weren't for Ly-

For the precious person who wasn't the person who stood in front of him now, flanked by two beings who despite all their power _were going to die if they were responsible for this_.

Like, like even his own mother. He'd have to be clever, she'd been clever enough to build in a kill switch (she hadn't trusted him from the beginning, had she, not at all, had he ever mattered to her? He thought he had, otherwise shouldn't she have killed him before now – he would have preferred death to this).

"Plenty of power to raise enough land for your country's refugees." Infel's voice was cold.

"But not enough for Metafalss' survivors to eke out a living," said the Goddess Maiden.

"…what are you talking about? Ar Tonelico has always supplied as much song magic power to Metafalss as requested. Except when I was in Suspend," Shurelia admitted, "but I don't think that's what you're talking about, is it?"

"Don't you dare pretend you don't know. Not when you are the embodiment of the song server Ar Tonelico!" Nenesha glared, eyes flashing dangerously. "Just like that little witch Frelia, playing dumb, acting like she was an airhead who couldn't do anything but what she was told, when her work with Dr. Enju before she was sent up to control the subserver… You're a reyvateil, a singing holy maiden, not an appliance! Do you really expect us to believe that you didn't know what was happening with your own tower, what was being done with your own power?! Don't lie to me! First you kept us from raising enough arable land, and then your government and ours sabotaged the Metafalica project so they could control food production and prices! If it weren't for Infel taking it over… And then what happened to… What they used me to do to Infel! Once the other Wing of Horus falls, then you can see what it's like to survive the way we did, when there wasn't enough time, resources or power to give us fractions of the arable land you had! You had all that food, all that wealth, and you still didn't care enough even about your _own _people to put any money into extending reyvateil lifespans? When reyvateils are _based on you_?"

So much anger: it felt like there should be a song magic hovering over her head, it felt like Ayatane should be moving into position to protect Lady Shurelia as Nenesha continued her hate-filled rant. "You stand there, and expect me to believe that you aren't a monster after everything you've done and everything you've failed to do for the people you knew needed your help, just because you blink your eyes at me? Just because you look like a child?! Of course you knew! Your government was in collusion with ours: you wanted to keep us a dependant client state so we wouldn't ally with your enemies, and ours wanted to stay in power! So there wasn't enough power for us to have Wings of Horus, remember? Metafalica would never have been necessary, we would have had the land we needed from the beginning, if it weren't for Ar Tonelico!"

He'd spent years acting as though his dream was to guard Lady Shurelia, along with Ly-someone who would want him to protect her now. He knew that, even though it felt as though there was nothing left to protect. Nothing that he could protect, because he'd _failed_.

So what did it matter if the last Wing of Horus fell? If Lady Shurelia fell, and both Ar Tonelico and Metafalss fell with her? Along with his Mother's dream of Reyvateilia. Her foolish dream.

It would not have been a paradise for his kind, or Lyner. Either of Lyner's kinds, the one he was born to and the one he was made because Ayatane wanted to keep him _safe_.

Infel looked at Shurelia's allies contemptuously. "And you think you can stop us with only a primitive hunk of junk," Mei Mei wasn't even a reyvateil, and the two of them had fought Frelia's versions before. "And a virus? I should have seen what this meant before. Dr. Enju, that traitor…"

A distant part of Ayatane wanted to say that Dr. Enju had nothing to do with his creation, that Mir was perfectly capable of inventing sentient viruses on her own. And she'd done a far better job of it than Enju. Ayatane had far more functions, didn't need to lock his memories away in order to function…

But he could, couldn't he.

The way Lyner locked away Misha, Ayatane could lock away Lyner. In order to protect the tower and Lady Shurelia, in order to protect what Lyner fought for. In order to live on, find some sort of happiness because he would have no idea what he was missing.

It was probably what Lyner would have wanted.

Ayatane still couldn't do it. He couldn't surrender those memories, couldn't surrender his most precious treasures, couldn't surrender _all that was left of Lyner Barsett except this thing that was going to die_.

Ayatane smiled serenely: an old, familiar mask to wear while thinking of destruction.

Lyner's level seven had said that trying to possess the Guardian would be suicide, even though Ayatane was capable of possessing even Lady Shruelia. He would have to assume that the avatar knew what it was talking about: as much as he'd like to eat away at that _thing _from within, the risk was unacceptable. Failure was unacceptable.

So, when he said, "Excuse me, your holinesses," bowed while sheathing his swords and vanished, it was not to return to viral form and try to infiltrate the Guardian.

It was to find his mother.

It was such a relief to find her like this, on the floor of the Crescent Chronicle with his sister's arms wrapped around her. It almost made him stumble: it did make him smile, even if it was only a small, pale one. His mother was crying, and of course. This was why Lyner had woken up: Aurica must have gotten through to Mir. And after that she would have been busy undoing what she'd done to the tower. Apologizing to Aurica.

Crying.

Even now, Ayatane could still feel a little happy for her, even in the middle of the fog that was creeping over him. Even the collar was nothing like this: he'd never wished before that he could stop feeling. Become a thing, like a ro-no, not like a robot. They could feel this ache too: he'd seen it in Mei Mei's eyes when she saw her sister's broken programming.

He loved his mother, even after everything. So he still hesitated to step forward, to say, "Lyner is, Lyner is dead," and intrude on this moment with his own needs. Distract Aurica from someone who truly needed her children to stand by her.

Ayatane should have been reunited with Mir when she came to her senses. He knew that he should have joined Aurica there with her, should have held her and reassured her that he didn't hate her. Should have thanked her for everything and promised that he would help her be happy.

The reason he didn't? Because Lyner was more important to him. Than his own mother. Mir was not a fool: he could see in those dark eyes that she'd already figured that out. He could see the pain in them, and the wry smile that was born of self-hatred. She thought she deserved this. Did she think that she was just as evil as her parents, when she'd created a child in order to use him?

He didn't want her to feel that way. He wanted to assure her otherwise, but the words died in his throat because _Lyner_. Lyner and Lady Shurelia could force themselves to ignore their own grief for the sake of others: why couldn't he? Why did part of him want Mir to comfort him now, when she was the one who truly needed it?

Because there was still a chance Mir could be happy: Ayatane wanted to believe that. Even though he didn't think he could ever be happy again.

He took another step forward, and this time he did stumble, falling to one knee and aching. Krusche, it was the former human that caught him, Jack hanging back awkwardly.

Flute was leaning against the wall, and his face would have been unreadable even if the mask wasn't in the way.

"What? What happened to Lyner?" Misha was demanding, and with Ayatane's red eyes closed he didn't see Aurica and Mir helping each other up, Aurica's ornate sleeves still wrapped around Mir's body.

Reporting. He could manage reporting, even if it was only Krusche's arms that kept him from falling to both knees, all his grace lost. "He… the Guardian… It said that it was the part of Lyner that remembered you, Misha. That Lyner was too weak, and it stabbed him. He disappeared into the Binary Field and the Guardian remained: It's trying to kill Lady Kanade, and Lady Shurelia and Lady Mei Mei are also there. Lady Mei Mei's gates are holding him off for now, but Ladies Nenesha and Infel appeared, they seem to blame Lady Shurelia for something that happened to their tower. They're helping the Guardian." The gates would not hold, not against legends.

He expected Mir to remark on the presence of Infel and Nenesha: they were her childhood idols, the two of them and their song of hope. He didn't expect a thin hand, frail from so many centuries in suspended animation, to touch his head, to run those fingers through his hair. "My poor boy."

He shuddered, and that was when the tears came.

"Ayatane…" A hand that had to be Aurica's touched the shoulder that wasn't braced against Krusche, who had her arms wrapped around him in order to hold him up. "Mi-Mother, please? Please watch over Ayatane?"

"You want to go avenge Lyner."

"I'm sorry. I know we were just reunited, but," Aurica had to sniffle, and Ayatane realized Mir wasn't the only one who had been crying. "Ayatane's the one who should really get to avenge Lyner, but look at him. He needs you: you're his mother. He just lost the person he loved more than anything, and if it was one of Lyner's cosmosphere avatars, how can he kill something with Lyner's face?"

That made Ayatane feel even worse, because was that the real reason he left Lady Shurelia and the others behind? Not to confirm that Mir had nothing to do with this, not to get help, but just because he couldn't bear to attack that thing? He _wanted _to destroy it, and yet the thought of turning his blade on Lyner? The last of Lyner dying on Ayatane's blades? It was too much like what would have happened, when Platina fell.

It was something out of his nightmares.

The hand on his shoulder applied more pressure, pushing him forward, and Ayatane could feel that Aurica's other arm was wrapped around Mir, that it was her hug that was pushing them both together. "He needs you here," Aurica said, a pale brown head leaning against Ayatane's silver and Mir's darkness. "He was Lyner's partner, so he must be suffering a lot more than I am right now. I want to stay with both of you," she hoped Mir knew that, "but none of the others can get to the Binary Field." Aurica's breath hitched. "It, it should have been over now. We should be able to be a family now, and I should be able to stay with you, to protect you. I want to protect you, Mother, and so does Ayatane. I thought, I thought all of us could be happy now. Now this, and I won't forgive that thing for breaking my brother's heart. I won't forgive it for hurting my family." Never again.

She'd sworn to herself that she wouldn't let anyone harm her precious people ever again.

She wasn't a helpless little girl anymore, and yet Lyner was still dead. Ayatane was still hurt like this, and she hadn't done anything even though she _could _be in two places at once.

No. She wouldn't let herself drown in helplessness ever again. Wouldn't discard her own power either because she was afraid of it or because she was convinced it was useless.

No one was perfect, not even Ly-

Hadn't she promised him that she didn't need him? That she'd be strong and go on even without him? If he was dead, then he needed her even more now, because he couldn't protect Ayatane anymore. Couldn't protect this world anymore.

So the Holy Maiden of Ar Tonelico clasped her hands together in prayer, using the power she had attained to enter into the Binary Field to do battle with the Holy Maidens of Metafalss. And anyone else who thought they were going to stand in her way. Not after she saved her mother.

Not when she had a family to protect, and this time she would not fail.


	43. Heavens Clouded Over

He was meditating on the beach, as usual. Even though it had been some time since he had been called to action either in the stories Mir imagined or in the reality of his role as a cosmosphere guardian, he still instantly became alert when another presence intruded into her mind.

It was a surprise, but he did not allow the surprise to put him off-balance. At least the presence came from the binary field, and it certainly wasn't a human.

He couldn't let them come to him, even if Mir believed he was invincible on the sands. Not when they might disturb the Mir of this level, or rouse the deeper levels.

"Cosmosphere guardians?" because that was clearly what they were. Both of them. He smiled a greeting, but didn't lower his blades. Even if they did look like stuffed animals. "We don't get many visitors here." In fact, this was the first time since Mir was eight that anyone had entered her real cosmosphere. She had grown adept at creating stories to entrap them in, and usually Ayatane was made to play whatever role he was currently assigned instead of simply slaying the villains. Even if these might not be villains.

Just because their reyvateils might not have Mir's imagination didn't mean they weren't dangerous.

"Ayatane?" said the paler one excitedly. "See? I knew it!"

"This is ridiculous," said the other one. "If Mir had Ayatane during the ancient war, wouldn't she have used him then? I have had the honor of being Aurica's mind guardian since she was seven!"

"Oh, you mean the virus?" Ayatane asked them. "He was based on me." Not the other way around. "Who better to infiltrate an order of virtuous knights than a virus made in the image of a virtuous knight?" Especially a virtuous knight who was something of a trickster, as Mir had imagined him. "Ah, so that's how you gained entrance here: you are the guardian of the girl with Mir's hymn code." Which meant that this 'Don Leon' had the same code Ayatane himself did. Inconvenient, even if Ayatane had the home ground advantage here.

A pity that he wasn't as powerful as he'd been in Mir's childhood, when she'd convinced herself that the stories she could retreat into could save her. Before she realized that Ayatane was merely a fragment of herself, another mask Mir's spirit donned, just like all of her song magic. And thus he was as powerless as Mir, and had no power to protect her. No more than a single pebble on this beach could stand against the tide that rose to obliterate it.

That was why she made the virus, to send out in the real world. He knew that part of her intended to replace him with the virus when it was over. That would be a pity. Not only because the virus had its own existence, but for that to happen would truly prove that Mir didn't believe that she could, or should, protect herself, even with all her power.

"I am Don Leon, Aurica's mind guardian, and this is-"

"You must come with us!" the other guardian interrupted, bobbing up and down in midair and waving its stubby arms excitedly.

"And leave Mir?" He laughed, looking out at the Sea of Nam, the representation of the wider universe. What could possibly be so important?

* * *

"Open. Up. You. Stupid. Thing," he said, each word punctuated with the clash of his most powerful sword against the door to the tower, the bells on his sleeves ringing out with every move he made. "Alright, that's it!"

"No, Lyner, don't you idiot!" Hama grabbed his arms, trying to keep him from throwing the song magic that had suddenly appeared in his hands, taking the form of a bomb. "You'll destroy this world!"

"I just built it, I can rebuild it!"

"Not if you kill yourself with the blast! Lyner, you idiot! Think about other people's feelings!" Think about Misha!

And Hama herself, who didn't want to lose her daddy.

"…Don't worry, Hama," Lyner said, and she was relieved when she saw him finally putting down the 'bomb' that was really a copy of the engines that powered Ar Tonelico itself. "But it won't let me into the tower until I do the ceremony, and I can't do the ceremony without Ayatane, and Ayatane can't come here if he thinks I'm dead, and I can't just _sit here and_…" Aargh! He kicked at the door to the tower. "All of the others get to wander in and out as they please, and I'm stuck here? That is so not fair!"

When Lyner raised his blade again to strike at the door because it was better than doing nothing, even if he had to chip away at it until doomsday, the strike was intercepted. "It has nothing to do with fairness," a new voice told him, the voice of the warrior who had just grabbed his sword bare-handed as he emerged from the door. "The level nine avatars are the most powerful, and thus the most dangerous."

"…You're not my Ayatane," Lyner said, carefully pulling back his sword and waiting for the man to get out of his way. Not really with hostility, or as though he was dismissing the visitor because of this, but almost as an apology for why Lyner probably wasn't going to be a very good host. Not when his eyes had focused on the not-Ayatane for only an instant before looking past him, focusing once again on the door. "I couldn't get out of the inn until I made this damn wedding dress, and now I can't _get to him… _I thought you were going to keep trying to tell Ayatane I was alive!" he demanded of Don Leon and Funbun. "Get back out there!"

"I am only made out of fluff!" Funbun reminded him. "The other you would have eaten me for breakfast if I appeared again, and now Ayatane isn't in the Binary Field anymore."

"_Damn _it!" If he wasn't in the binary field, then how could the mind guardians reach him and let him know that Lyner was alive… sort of. Did level nines, did cosmosphere avatars, really count? He was pretty sure it wasn't supposed to work this way, but then the real people weren't supposed to go through cosmosphere shifts, even if they were in the Binary Field. It wasn't like he'd had any particular significant realizations or anything, right? He'd been saying something to the other part of himself, but he didn't think it was anything really groundbreaking. If it was enough to enable a cosmosphere shift, shouldn't the other guy have gone through instead of stabbing him?

Lyner shook his head, because he couldn't afford to think about it that way. He was _alive_, and that was what he was going to insist on. What he was going to tell Ayatane. Because if Lyner was dead, then he had died right in front of Ayatane, and Ayatane must be blaming himself for that right now even though it was Lyner's own fault, and he couldn't let him suffer like that!

In order to make him _stop _suffering like that, Lyner had to open that stupid door. "Here goes nothing…"

The ocarina almost screamed. "Grab him! Don't let him use that bomb!"

It was easy to kick away the stuffed animals, but the Ayatane was harder to get away from, grabbing Lyner's arm and twisting it behind his back. "I know what I'm doing!" Lyner insisted after heel and elbow strikes proved ineffective against the armor. The wedding dress he had to put on before the programming would let him get even this far wasn't helping either, the elaborate lace folds hampering his movements. "Why do you think I never used this bomb in the real world or the binary field? I'm not going to just blow myself up: I have a damage nullification hymn now!"

"You could have told me earlier!" Hama said, hitting him over the head with her ocarina.

"That's why I said don't worry!" Otherwise he would have apologized, although, "I _am _sorry for scaring you, but the last thing I want to do right now is die again." Not when Ayatane must be in pain, and Lady Shurelia and the sisters were still in danger, along with the lower world. He let out a frustrated breath, trying to calm down so they'd see he was rational, even if absolutely no one could possibly be _calm_ at a time like this. "Look, if you're Mir's mind guardian, then you know she cares about Ayatane. I need to get out there, for his sake." So would the other Ayatane hurry up and let go of him?

"The bird can cry out to the heavens, but the heavens will not answer."

"What?" Lyner said, then felt embarrassed an instant later.

"Hymns won't work on that door," the other Ayatane told him. "It was meant to cage powerful reyvateils, keep them from accessing their true power. It would be absolutely useless if it couldn't withstand whatever they crafted."

"Right, I knew that." He'd learned enough about the language of songs to know that the other Ayatane was actually being pretty straightforward. It made sense that Mir would prefer hymn language to human language: Lyner should have thought of that before instead of just assuming that the other Ayatane was talking nonsense, no matter how frustrated Lyner was. Still, "Then what am I supposed to do?" Lyner demanded. "Just sit here and wait until Ayatane goes back into the Binary Field? Just wait around while the people I care about are in danger and suffering because of me? And what about Mir? I know she thinks I'm annoying, but you're proof that Ayatane really matters to her."

"Good things come to those who serve the heavens." Lyner was released just enough that he could turn around and see the other Ayatane's smile. "I was born of Mir's mind, so I have more than a little of her skill with these things. Your cosmosphere avatar is right: my identity code is the same as your Ayatane's."

"Wait… Funbun!" Lyner stared at it. "Do the ceremony with someone who isn't Ayatane? I'm sure he's a nice guy since he's Ayatane's dad, but I don't even know him! The ceremony is about making a lifelong commitment to care for and support each other, and he's _Mir's _mind guardian! Mir! She needs him a lot more than I do, so how can he make that kind of commitment to me?"

"I won't," the mind guardian agreed, pleased that Lyner understood.

"Exactly!" Lyner nodded. "He's Mir's Ayatane: I can't take _both _her Ayatanes from her."

"As long as the ceremony is performed, I don't have to mean what I say. It's not as though humans don't lie to reyvateils." To be fair, few were the liars who made it this far. Few and devastating. It took skill to make a reyvateil lower this many of her defenses, and the more sociopathic a human was, the easier it was for them to develop that skill. Humans who cared could get overly emotional and mess up because of it. It was far easier to manipulate others, even into feeling loved, without those pesky feelings getting in the way.

"You want me to have my _commitment ceremony_ with someone who is _not _my Ayatane, someone who will be_ lying_?" Lyner looked more than a little devastated. This was something that meant so much to Aurica and Misha. This was something that was supposed to be special, the culmination of a partnership. Proof that a reyvateil would always have someone they could rely on, someone who had made it this far because they _wanted to_ help them.

"I don't want you to, but you'll do it anyway," said Mr. Funbun, sighing. "You care too much about other people."

Lyner looked at his mind guardian for a long moment, then hung his head, veil slipping forward to hide his face. "I know." For Ayatane. "I know."

That was what knights did, after all: make sacrifices for their partners. It wasn't as though Lyner hadn't known that reyvateils made sacrifices too. It wasn't that he would regret doing this for Ayatane. It wasn't as though he would have remembered this happening anyway, if he wasn't the level nine himself.

It was still one more compromise of himself and what he wanted, he knew as he followed Don Leon into the Cathedral, as Hama played the music.

It was still… wrong, he thought.

And lifted up the skirts so he didn't trip over them as he ran out of the cathedral.


	44. Facsimile

The factor of surprise didn't occur to Aurica, and if it had she would have dismissed it. The other reyvateils helping the Guardian must be like Mir and know a lot more about the Binary Field than Aurica did, so she wouldn't have thought that there was any chance at all she could sneak up on them. Especially since her cosmosphere avatars had to go ahead in order to find Lady Shurelia and lead Aurica to them, even if the bombmaker said something about how backtracing Ayatane's path made it easier.

That had made Aurica blink: she'd learned that Ayatane was meant to hide from Lady Shurelia in Lady Shurelia's own systems.

Her hands clenched around the skirts she'd pulled up in order to make it easier to run.

How upset must he have been, to leave a path her avatars could follow? When Ayatane was designed for this and her avatars had so little experience by comparison?

How upset must her brother be, when even under the collar she'd never seen him cry.

Those tears slid down his cheeks, and for a moment, between one breath and the next, he'd looked utterly inhuman.

Aurica knew what people looked like when they cried. She'd seen it in the mirror plenty of times. Even a reyvateil's face would get scrunched up if not all red and puffy. Distorted as they cringed away from the pain. From the memories. Of losing loved ones.

Ayatane still looked perfect.

Like someone had taken an eyedropper and placed drops of water in the eyes of a porcelain mask. Even though there was a tightness around his lips, trying to restrain his feelings, control himself, there was no redness around his eyes. There wasn't… It seemed fake for a moment, and if the tears weren't real then was he one of those people who cried on command? His feelings for Lyner couldn't possibly be false, but this just wasn't how people cried.

This wasn't realistic, it seemed like a badly fitting mask.

_Oh, yes, _she'd thought, as Mir reached out a hand to touch his face.

Because it was a mask. Ayatane was a virus, so Mir had crafted that face. Things that were grathmelded, like the bunny bombs: they wouldn't make a movement unless Lyner built that movement into them. They might look like real bunnies, but they wouldn't move or act like real bunnies automatically. Lyner had to work out how to make them jump: it was really a lot of work to get the details right.

So even though Ayatane's emotions were real, it made sense that they weren't being shown exactly the way a human or reyvateil's body would show theirs.

Mir gave her son the capacity to shed tears, but _she hadn't wanted him to cry_. Not like this. Not with misery and loss wound up at the core of him. Not when it was almost impossible for him to go on.

If Mir was anything like Lyner, and she had to be if she was so good, then she had to be a perfectionist. She wouldn't have left something like this out, not when Ayatane would have had to feign grief at the deaths of Lady Shurelia and others, unless it hadn't occurred to her.

Unless she hadn't wanted to think about it.

Hadn't wanted to even imagine her son going through even a fraction of the pain Mir herself experienced, once upon a time.

To see that pale, bare hand trying to wipe those tears away… Like Claire trying to comfort Aurica, even though Claire's own parents were dead.

If Aurica had needed any more proof that Mir wasn't a monster?

Voices in the distance, hard to make out over the soft murmuring that composed the binary field. Programs, like Ayatane? That made Aurica wonder if people were right and the tower really was alive, like Ayatane was, and then she realized that of course the tower was alive.

The tower was _Lady Shurelia_.

"-ressive."

"Too impressive for someone who claims not to know what her own systems were doing."

"I've faced attacks on my tower before." That third voice: that was Lady Shurelia's voice! "I know how to handle crackers."

A voice – the first voice – snorted.

"What?" Lady Shrurelia said crossly.

"A reyvateil, raised on _this _tower? A reyvateil who didn't receive any training, was just a component of a weapons system?"

"You're right," Lady Shurelia agreed. "Mir did have to figure everything out on her own, while you were recognized as a genius and trained by your mentor from the beginning, weren't you, Infel? Because of the legends of singing holy maidens in your religion, Metafalss was far more respectful of reyvateils than Sol Ciel." Back then. "You were their pride and joy, the center of their research program. You had teachers, while my father was the only one who really wanted me to understand the power I wielded," that Shurelia had power at all. "Mir had no one to teach her, and the things she wanted to know were forbidden knowledge for reyvateils. And she was still a better hacker than you," she said as Aurica dropped down onto their level of the binary field, the bells in her outfit jangling as she ran.

To be fair to Infel, she'd focused on hacking reyvateils and the Sol Marta system, while Mir had focused on the tower. Shurelia knew that Infel's virus had to be good, to break into the minds of so many reyvateils, but right now, what really worried Shurelia?

For someone used to dueling against Mir, Infel's attacks seemed far too ham-handed. Because they were direct.

Shurelia was _winning_ this duel. She wasn't used to winning. She was used to having her own mind hacked, and all she could do was try to be aware of it in retrospect, try to identify when and where Mir had hacked the tower even if she might not be able to do anything about it but warn others.

Infel's programming stuck out like a sore thumb in Ar Tonelico's systems. The Metafalss reyvateil's programming style was distinctive, while Mir's work was camouflaged. Infel's programs might be powerful, but to Shurelia's defense systems, honed by centuries of watching for the smallest hints that something might be out of place, that something might be Mir's work, because those small hints were all she was going to get _if _she was lucky?

This was so unlike everything she'd experienced that it was making Shurelia paranoid. All of Infel's attacks seemed so obvious, so blatant. _Too _obvious.

Shurelia was identifying and deleting them before they could even start to take effect, and Mir's programs were _never _that obvious. Not even the ones Shurelia was supposed to find, the ones that were meant to serve as a distraction for a subtle attack creeping in through the systems' back doors, were _this _easy to find.

All of Shurelia's hard-earned instincts were screaming at her that this was too easy. And if her opponent in a hacking duel was _letting her _realize that this was too easy? Letting Shurelia realize that there had to be another attack coming from some other direction, then how far was that knife already buried in her back?

It didn't even occur to her that Infel might be trying to get Shurelia to underestimate her. All of Shurelia's experience was either exercises in the labs, where the researchers had assumed that they were better than her and Shurelia would know that, or against _Mir, _who was much better than Shurelia and _wanted _her to know it.

Already riled up by Shurelia's earlier defiance, now all of the tower's system defense protocols were fully awake, checking _everything _line by line because there had to be a trap _somewhere_. Because fighting off crackers was _never _this easy.

Infel's virus was perfectly honed for attacking the minds of reyvateils and Sol Marta, perfectly targeted to their vulnerabilities, but the antivirus protections of reyvateils and the auxiliary server hadn't been updated since their creation.

Shurelia fought a _war_.

Leard might have put it in terms of fencing, someone used to scoring with the point of an epee, slipping their thin blade through clothing and scoring a few, devastating hits. In theory.

A damn stupid way to fight, against someone in full armor with a battle axe. Against a real warrior, a veteran knight, someone who knew this was not a game. Their one advantage would be inflicting confusion. 'What does that idiot think they're doing' confusion.

Infel's virus was as perfectly honed and applied to the minds of ordinary reyvateils as a surgeon's scalpel sliding in to do a lobotomy.

Shurelia was no ordinary reyvateil.

Mir knew from the beginning that she had much to learn, that she was attempting to do the impossible. Infel had grown up a genius, beloved by the people of Metafalss as their shining hope.

_She's good_, was what Shurelia was thinking. _Too good to be this stupid_.

It didn't occur to Shurelia that what she was seeing was arrogance. The arrogance of a genius whose work had never failed her. _Mir _was arrogant in her programming, certainly. Creating something like Ayatane was proof of it. Yet her arrogance showed itself in _this is what I can do, _not _this is what I will do_.

Mir had never glared at Shurelia for having the gall to resist her attacks, never attempted to hammer her into submission. Mir had studied Ar Tonelico, not merely assaulted it.

Infel was used to giving Sol Marta orders and having them obeyed. Used to ordering the minds of reyvateils.

She was _not _used to being told no.

In the beginning, on the Metafalica project, if a reyvateil's mind resisted Infel's programming? That was a problem with the reyvateil. If Sol Marta didn't want to run one of her programs, since it required a dangerous level of power? That was a problem with Sol Marta. That was Frelia's doing.

Because Infel was trying to create a paradise, with the support of all Metafalss. What decent person would oppose that project? What decent person wouldn't do what was needed?

What knight in shining armor dressed in the colors of their enemy and snuck in through their back gates?

The Maiden of Aqua, the Maiden of Love beloved by her people glared down at the Lady of the Tower as an armored hand impatiently batted away another attack. Shurelia's eyes couldn't be seen behind the faceplate of her Linkage Armor, but the power of reyvateils lay in emotions. Infel could read the coding around her in this, the binary field. It was written out for her.

_Why aren't you taking this seriously_ was what Shurelia was asking. She'd donned that armor as soon as this duel began, knowing that she'd need every advantage she could get against a cracker.

Infel'd smiled then, because yes, her enemy would need all the help she could get and it wouldn't be enough… Except Shurelia still wasn't acknowledgeing Infel's efforts. Was still surely raising an eyebrow at her, wondering why Infel wasn't taking this seriously…

"You're right," Infel realized. "I haven't been using my full pow-"

Even as she spoke, she called out to Infel Phira. The reyvateils connected to it were still connected to Sol Marta: why was she dueling the false goddess herself to begin with? When the true power of her server lay in networking? Lay in taking thousands of wills, thousands of minds, and making them one?

The will of the people of Metafalss, those who desired Metafalica, would destroy their tormentor. The blue-silver light of this place reflected off her glasses as she began to smile.

It didn't even take an effort of will on Shurelia's part.

The designers of the tower, mindful of the possibility of a reyvateil rebellion, would have had to be idiots not to build in defenses against a DDoS attack.

Attacks from multiple sources intended to tie up the tower's resources, too much for it to be able to function properly?

When those multiple sources could be identified, sorted out from reyvateils making valid requests so easily, thanks to Infel's distinctive coding style, the upgrades she'd 'given' the infected?

Exec_Purger wasn't necessary. Infel's attacks never got that far. All of her infected were third-generation reyvateils who didn't have individual hymn codes, personal authorizations that would need to be personally retracted by Shurelia in order to deny their users access to Sol Marta and Ar Tonelico.

_Violation of terms of service agreement._

_You are isolated and kicked from the system_.

Nenesha's cry of alarm drowned out Shurelia's angry, "Tch!" Because she hadn't ordered that response. Hadn't _wanted _to kick Infel's avatar out of her systems.

Now Infel was back in Infel Phira, on Metafalss.

Now Infel was _out of Shurelia's reach_. Lyner's murderer was down an ally for now, but if Infel was anything like Mir she would be back, would strike without warning.

"Lady Shurelia," the administrator heard, and turned to see Aurica standing at her side. Mei Mei must have recognized her as one of the people who came with Radolf and promised to convey her message to her sister. "What, what should I do?"

For a moment Shurelia was surprised that Aurica wasn't asking what happened, why one of Lyner's avatars was standing by Nenesha when she knew that avatar. It was one of the two that ate funbuns with her amidst the ruins of Platina's best dive shop.

The young reyvateil looked at her with determination, and "_She knows Lyner is dead_," Shurelia knew. "_Ayatane must have told her_."

"What about Mir?" was what Shurelia asked, because if Mir attacked _now_?

"She's with Ayatane," was all Aurica said. Was all Aurica had to say.

Shurelia knew Mir knew that she could attack later. That Mir, in her own arrogance, would comfort her son first.

It didn't calm her any.

Nenesha was a Holy Maiden. Like Mir's teiwaz account, she might not have any personal authorization to control Ar Tonelico's systems in her own right, like Lyner and Leard, but she had access through another account.

_Frelia's _account, the way Aurica had access through Mir's.

It was easy to kick Third Generation reyvateils from the system, but there was nothing Shurelia could do in order to shut down Nenesha's access to Ar Tonelico without shutting down _Frelia's_.

And Frelia's access was Sol Marta's access. Not only that, Frelia's account was running multiple powerful hymns, which was one reason it was so confusing that this Enju said something happened to Frelia.

One of the hymns Frelia was running?

Shurelia had run a hymn like that herself once.

When Mir dropped the Wing of Horus.

When Shurelia tried to keep it aloft for a few desperate hours in order to buy time to evacuate as many people as possible before it plummeted into the depths of the Inferia.

No, Shurelia couldn't touch Frelia's account. Couldn't possibly do anything that would disrupt a hymn like that.

Which meant that even though it was Infel and her virus that were dangers to Shurelia's reyvateils, it was Nenesha that was a danger to Shurelia herself.

Who might be able to do as much damage to the tower as Mir had. Shurelia couldn't stop Mir because she hadn't been able to see Mir's attacks coming. Nenesha? Everything she did would be flagged for Shurelia's attention, thanks to the alerts she'd written trying to give herself some warning against Mir.

Shurelia would see it all coming… and not be able to do anything about it.

Nenesha had hung back until now, letting the programmer be the one to launch attacks on Shurelia's systems, but now she was angry.

"_Good," _Shurelia thought, riding her own wrath. "_Good."_

* * *

_Infel probably never learned to style copy. _

_This is something that writers and readers should be familiar with: making your writing look like someone else's writing. Imagine you're reading, oh, Falkner and suddenly some pages are in Homestuck's chatspeak format. It's pretty obvious that the book's been tampered with and you should rip out those pages. Style copying is very important for fanfiction. Think about making something 'original flavor,' feel like something that could have happened in the source material. About having characters speak the way they speak in the source material. _

_Mir knows how to write programs that look like programs that belong in Ar Tonelico, that the tower's systems should obey. She knows how to infiltrate. Infel never learned that, as opposed to how to get around static security measures. I doubt she even knows that's an issue, since while she's a young genius she's never encountered obstacles like this before. She took the lead on Infel Phira: other people had to copy _her _style. _

_Infel using the massed IPDs for an attack was a very good idea. What she failed to realize is that she wasn't the only person in history to have that exact good idea, and that meant that defenders obviously would have come up with strategies to block such an obvious move. _

_ It's also a failure of Theory of Mind. She's not giving Shurelia enough credit and that's why she's out of the fight, the way Infel doesn't give Frelia anywhere near enough credit. _

_She doesn't grasp that there's a difference between 'not on my side' and 'bad person.' This really is why she's a bad guy in the game itself, and it makes her the opposite of Lyner, who makes such an effort to understand other people and give them credit. Practially all the Metafalss characters have this flaw to some degree._


	45. From the New World

Aurica wanted to be frustrated.

Who was this person, to come in and attack when Mir was finally free? Who was this person standing between her and the one who murdered Lyner?

Except, if she just assumed someone was evil?

Hadn't she wanted to be a holy maiden to help everyone with the power of the goddesses? To make everyone's lives better?

Everyone, no exceptions, because to leave someone out because she was upset with them, or they were a low-ranked reyvateil who wouldn't live very long anyway?

Because this person was someone Aurica didn't know, so she didn't know why they were so upset, why they could do something so terrible as let an ally of theirs kill Lyner?

Lady Shurelia hadn't answered Aurica's question of what she could do to help, but there had to be something. Right now, it looked like this person was too angry to listen if Aurica tried to talk, and a part of Aurica, the part of her that wanted to explode things, was angry at that. Shouldn't she be more upset if Lady Shurelia actually killed her friend? So how dare she be too angry to listen when it was Aurica's friend who was dead? What did this person have to complain about?

Except no, they wouldn't be here if it wasn't _something_.

Exec_Harmonius

Born of Mir's desire to get through to her parents, the feelings in there got through to Mir. It was a hymn crafted for a single purpose, yes, a hymn born of a child's suffering, but it held the desire to understand and to be understood.

The willingness to listen, even if the truth cut like a thousand blades.

Aurica began to sing.

And Nenesha flinched.

Many songs, especially in Metafalss, were based on ancient legends. Stories that people knew, that they already had feelings about, so the song could draw on the strength of those feelings.

Harmonius was based on what Mir heard of Metafalica.

Of a grand project, a grand wish that united an entire tower, humans and reyvateils. Everyone coming together to help one another build a great future for everyone. Metafalica, the promised land, the land of hope: that such a project could even exist was the basis of the hope in Mir's song, the program downloaded into the song crystal.

Even filtered through Aurica, from the mind of someone to whom Metafalica was a stray mention in old books from the age of legends, Nenesha could still hear it.

Could still make out her greatest wish, her people's wish, the wish of her beloved.

The wish they'd failed to grant.

"Stop!" she cried. "Don't… You know nothing of Metafalica! You know nothing of how hard Infel worked, how much we all sacrificed, just so that…" Weakness, in her heart and Infel's, because to make the other doubt their love? To make someone think that if their love saw their _true _heart, they would be disgusted and reject them? "How dare you fling that song in our faces when you, your tower!"

How dare they turn it into a song of hope, a song of reconciliation held out to them, when Ar Tonelico was the reason Metafalica was necessary! How could this stupid girl possibly think that reminding Nenesha of Ar Tonelico's crimes was going to make her want to do anything but destroy them?

So much anger, so much hatred, but more than that anger with herself, self-hatred. The pain of those ancient days. The despair that followed.

Yet worse than that despair, something else.

The first bitter taste she'd had in years of that terrible illusion. Hope.

If people would only hurt each other, then it was best to separate them, but the song spoke of people coming together, of finding ways to stop hurting each other.

If everyone was separated, then Infel…

No! She had to protect Infel! Even from what was left of herself!

"The black barren earth… the darkness that surrounds and corrupts everything… thinking that you can overthrow it…"

"Barren black earth?" the alchemist asked. "Isn't soil more fertile the darker it is?"

"From death and destruction, flames and decay, comes the potential for new life," the angel knew.

"Darkness is merely the absence of light," Aurica's heart knew. "The flame that frightened me so much: the power of that fire is the power to bring light into the darkness. To burn away the darkness that surrounds and corrupts. To free those trapped by pain and suffering, those who can't see beyond it."

"Darkness just hides what's there. It's not the truth. If people are angry, they're angry for a reason," said the anger in Aurica's heart.

"If you think darkness is corrupting the world, then doesn't that mean you believe that the world has the potential to be better than it is, without that darkness?"

"This song is meant to help people understand the feelings in one another's hearts. Whatever you're fighting for: don't you want to overthrow the darkness to? To liberate people from it?" All of Aurica held out her arms.

"You… you _child_. You don't know, you don't understand! You can't understand!" Nenesha's image blurred, and blurred again. "I… You… You're just trying to destroy me!" she finally declared, relief and triumph as she vanished.

Ran.

Leaving only the Guardian.

Who smiled as the real Aurica opened her eyes and her avatars vanished. "Burn it all down. The reyvateil abusers: You understand, don't you Aurica? Burn it all away, clearing the land for new growth. Kill the evil before they kill the innocent."

She stared at him, because, "I know that feeling. That's the feeling that terrified me for so long. Made me afraid of my own power and what was in my heart. Because I wanted that. I wanted it to be that simple, that easy. But that's a lie. Just like saying it's not possible to fight back against the darkness without yielding to darkness is a lie. You're one of the lies, one of the stories that Lyner told hi-"

"You're wrong! I'm the truth! The truth he couldn't bear to face! The truth he locked away so that he could sit back and let Misha be locked away!"

"I don't really know what happened back then," Aurica said, because she just wasn't there, she wasn't Lyner, or Misha. Leard or Shurelia. "But I know it wasn't that simple. People's hearts aren't that simple. Locking Misha away so everyone else could be protected: isn't that why everyone did it? It's not that you're the part of Lyner that wants to protect people," the Guardian, "and the rest of him doesn't-didn't care. He was told that he had to chose between Misha and his family. Misha and the entire tower. Misha and _everyone's _lives, including Misha's, isn't that it? There isn't… there wasn't any part of Lyner's heart that didn't want to protect people! Aren't you proof of that? Even when everyone else's lives were at stake, it still hurt him so much that he couldn't save Misha that he had to seal that pain away! The determination to save everyone that nearly made Lyner get killed so many times: that's why he felt that way! He wasn't ignoring you, that pain was still there! You're the reason he took that risk to get that hymn crystal, and…"

Aurica's eyes widened. "It's the reason he died in the end, wasn't it. Because he couldn't stop trying to save everyone. He tried to save you, didn't he." Silence, from Shurelia and the Guardian. "Lyner… Lyner was always so much harder on himself than on everyone else."

The part of him that hated himself, that wanted to die because he couldn't save everyone.

"You're… a part of his heart too," Aurica knew, and as much as she wanted to destroy the Guardian, if he was _all that was left_? "He was such a good person, but all he saw were his flaws. I think… maybe that's why he was such a good person. Because he knew that he was flawed, and tried to be a good person. Because he looked at other people, and saw our flaws, and thought he didn't have any right to reject us for them. He tried to help us become better people while he was trying to make himself a better person. As long as someone was willing to try to be a better person, that was all it took for him to forgive them, but he, he never forgave himself, did he? For failing Misha. For not being perfect. You executed him for that, didn't you?"

The Guardian looked pleased, almost a little proud of her. Was he seeing this as proof that Aurica understood because she was like him?

"And if Lyner deserved to die for something that happened when he was a child, something that saved people's lives," even if now it was no longer necessary. "If Lyner deserved to die, then who doesn't? He, he thought that he wasn't a very good person because of the standards he held himself to, but those standards… They just weren't fair! He wasn't fair to himself, and if you apply those standards to everyone else, it's not fair to them, either!"

So this was the part of Lyner that was spurring him on, that said that he had to risk his life for people, had to help everyone, had to… couldn't live for himself, or else…

Or else… What had just happened? Or else he didn't deserve to live? Not when Misha was singing her life away for him, so he didn't deserve to live unless he was worthy of that sacrifice?

But nothing could ever make Misha's suffering alright. So no matter how good Lyner was, it wasn't enough to make up for a single day, for those lost years. No matter how good _anyone _was, because everyone on the tower only survived because of Misha's suffering. Then there was Lady Shurelia, and the knights and reyvateils who fell to protect Platina and the lower world from viruses. So many things that people did to help each other, but if there was no way for anyone to deserve any of it?

A child crying for Misha, because it wasn't _fair_, and he wanted it to be fair, wanted things to be right, and this _wasn't_.

Just like Mir, when her parents rejected her, and Aurica, when her village burned down, and how could things like this happen? Was the world really such an evil place, were people like Bourd the ones who were right?

If this Lyner held people and the world to such impossibly high standards, then as long as people were people, with flaws in their hearts, nothing would ever be good enough to be spared. He would never stop trying to destroy everything. And this was a piece of Lyner.

She was going to have to destroy him. Going to have to destroy what was left of her best friend after Claire, of her brother's love.

Because as twisted as the Guardian was, this was the strength of Lyner's heart he wielded. This was the part of Lyner that made him so determined to save people, that made sure he would never give up.

Without the parts that made him hold himself back. Without the compassion she'd admired about him.

Just the part that made him salute her with his blade. "A Guardian needs a reyvateil. Your righteousness: that's what makes you worthy, Aurica. The way Mir isn't." Not anymore, not when she wouldn't fight whoever it took to bring about her new world. "You'll see the truth of this world eventually." Now that she was linked to the tower, now that she was immortal. "But, since I can't have you hating me either… That weak part of myself is still alive, but only because I can't get into where the system those reyvateil abusers created is keeping him. Go and let him out for me. You'll see how worthless he is without me. You'll see that I'm necessary."

He smirked. "For now, there's plenty to keep me busy on Metafalss. And as for the third tower, judging from the agents they sent to stir up trouble in Metafalss? I'm not just a part of that weakling anymore. I'm a being of the binary field, just as immortal as Mir. And as you. When your current knight ages, and dies, and leaves you alone? When your crusade to change this tower with the power of the Holy Maiden fails, because there's no good in people's hearts to awaken? Whenever you need a Guardian, Aurica. Whenever _anyone _needs a Guardian."

Sheathing his sword, he vanished.

Aurica turned to look at Lady Shurelia. She couldn't see her face through the linkage armor, but the stillness of her body, the stasis punctuated by frantic movement of the field around her?

"You will… have to ask Mir what he meant by that," Lady Shurelia said finally.

"What he meant by what?" Aurica wondered, and didn't say 'you should ask her yourself,' because that might be taken the wrong way. As Aurica, as the Tower's holy maiden thinking she was too good to do the work of her goddess instead of because she wanted Shurelia and Mir to reconcile.

"Whenever _anyone _needs a Guardian: the way he said that, the way the tower reacted to his emotions. Like Mir. When she said something impossible," like taking control of the tower away from Shurelia, away from its avatar, "and she had a _plan_."

This was Lyner. The part of him that demanded the impossible of himself.

"He's not a cosmosphere avatar anymore," that, Shurelia could say. "He severed himself from Lyner when he killed him like that. That's why I couldn't sense that Lyner was alive through his connection to the avatar."

"He is alive?!" Really? Aurica knew the Guardian wouldn't lie, not like that, but it just hadn't sunk in.

"Yes, but I don't think anyone but Ayatane will be able to get him out of there." Shurelia clearly felt like she couldn't help anyone: Aurica didn't need to see her downcast eyes when she could hear it in the goddess' voice. "A virus is a being of program code, but a being of emotions, the desire for righteous destruction…"

"You mean he's planning to become a hymn?" Whenever anyone called for a Guardian…

"You should ask Mir," Shurelia said again. "But I hope that's all it is."

The tiredness there: not just from the battle, but Aurica could hear years of, 'Lyner, what have you done _now_?' in there, just like when Lyner sang the hymn to awaken her and undid what she'd thought would save the tower. Something well-intentioned, even helpful, but something that just caused her so much trouble she wanted to tear that long silver hair out.

Shurelia really was Lyner's mother, wasn't she?

Aurica walked over and reached up to take Lady Shurelia's hand. "Come on, we have to go let Ayatane know."

Shurelia hesitated. "He's not with his mother?" That couldn't be right, but why else would Aurica want to bring Lady Shurelia along with her?

Aurica shook her head. "I wouldn't have left either of them alone if they were alone." If grieving Ayatane wasn't with his mother, if anguished Mir wasn't with her son. "But we need to put the past behind us and work together, don't we? Isn't this a good place to start?"

The Goddess of the Tower and the Mother Virus joining hands.

For the sake of their children's happiness.

* * *

_So, I wanted this to have a different ending than the outline and that's really what's delayed it this much. Really, I should have just stuck with the plan._

_Epilogue should be posted shortly. Hopefully._


	46. For The Children

"I still think it is appallingly humanocentric of you to refuse to reproduce like a beta-type reyvateil just because you're male," Mir said, folding her arms as Lyner took the baby from her.

"Am I holding her right?" he asked Shurelia, since she was the one with centuries of experience with babies. "And if I did that, the child would have been a clone of me _and_ a reyvateil. You're the only one who could combine my data with Ayatane's and create a virus like him," he said as Shurelia adjusted his arms a little.

Lyner had clearly done enough research to know to support a baby's head, but this was Shurelia and Mir's grandbaby they were talking about.

"What's wrong with having a child that's a reyvateil?" Mir wanted to know.

"Ayatane's a virus, and this is _our _child," Lyner reminded her. "And now that all the reyvateils have the abilities of beta types, I should be able to have a son the… normal for beta-types way any time I want. But I can't have a daughter on my own," only a cloned son, "and even if I'm okay at grathmelding, I'm nowhere near good enough at programming to try to create a virus like Ayatane without you looking over my shoulder to make sure I'm not messing up. With everything that's going on, I wouldn't feel ready to make an attempt even with you here for _years_. Now Ayatane isn't the only sentient virus on the tower," even if there were Teru with some pretty virus-like abilities. "Humans, Reyvateils, Teru, robots like Kanade and Mei Mei… I don't think making everyone the same is the answer, since people are _always _going to be different from each other. But now that the Teru are traveling outside Em Pheyna without disguising themselves as humans," so the only Teru people met were doing stereotypical things like operating dive shops, "Kanade and Mei Mei aren't cooped up anymore and we 'Apostles' aren't isolating ourselves, people can have the chance to meet other kinds of people and see that they're, well, not stories but people." People just like them.

"Dear, could I…" Ayatane asked, hovering.

"Here you go. I needed to talk to your mother anyway."

Ayatane stared at Lyner, even as he opened his arms to accept the child. Lyner just beamed at him. Shurelia wasn't sure exactly what this was about, but she noted that Ayatane took the child and retreated to a safe distance as Lyner turned to Mir.

"It's about the books you gave us to read to your grandchildren."

Shurelia took a step back as Mir glared. "Do you have a problem with my writing?"

"Yes!" Lyner said, because hell yes he did and how could Mir think otherwise? There was no way he was backing down over this! "I refuse to read my children anything that victimizes reyvateils _or _viruses! I thought you wanted to use the power of your words to help the next generation!"

Mir blinked.

"I know it's important for people to help each other, but a story where a reyvateil-like virus is doomed to die and _needs_ some human to help her instead of just being willing to accept help? _My_ children aren't going to put up with this kind of thing! When someone tries to take advantage of them..."

"…I still like the way you think," Mir said slowly. "You're right: I was writing what I knew back then and those characters aren't very good role models, are they? We still have a few more weeks before I leave for Metafalss," with those other people. "Why don't the two of us put our heads together about how we should… guide the development," brainwash, "the youth of Reyvate- I mean, Ar Tonelico into resisting the roles humans decreed for reyvateils. And those other races," she said, after Lyner's disapproving look at her and then at _her son_, who was not a reyvateil. "And try to have some short children's books and outlines done before I leave?"

She could have put it another way, but she _wanted _Lyner to be outraged about racism.

He still looked modest and said, "I've never written before. I don't think I'll be very much help."

"Oh, I think I can find some ways for you to help me with my writing process," Mir said, grin widening. Seeing that, Ayatane's face would have grown even paler, if that was possible.

* * *

Looking up from the book at Lyner's happy and hopeful expression and his mother's fiendish one, Ayatane was very glad he had subroutines for smiling even in difficult situations. "It's wonderful, dear and dear Mother."

Inwardly, he was thinking, '_Should small children really be exposed to such graphic violence?'_

"I didn't help all that much," Lyner said, "I just edited for how people talk these days, since the language has changed a little since when Mir was writing."

"No, Lyner, you were a lot of help. Especially with the fight scenes." Mother's eyes were practically sparkling.

"Don't listen to her. I can't stand to see people getting hurt, so if it was up to me all the stories would have been really boring." Lyner ducked his head. "When the point is, well, like with the stories about knights. Teaching kids what to do if they're attacked, that they can overcome challenges."

"Well, this certainly does that," Ayatane could honestly say. This one section, was, well, the gleeful description was Mother, but the way the character handled the situation would gotten a nine out of ten from even Platina's harshest graders. Ten out of ten required handling a situation perfectly, and 'perfect' would be giving scum like that the death they deserved for trying to lay their hands on someone like that. Yes, it was very clear that Mir had consulted with Lyner for the tactics here. The academy textbooks would have had less gory details, but more fatalities.

"Would you believe they don't give kids self-defense classes along with reading, writing and math in the lower world?" Lyner said, outraged. "Everyone needs to know how to handle monsters and rogue guardians! And no wonder people were treating Ms. Claire like that! Thinking they could get away with it just because it was illegal for her to use song magic on them… I talked to Aurica, and we're going to send some partners to local churches as instructors."

"I always did like my battle scenes," Mir said smugly, "but they're definitely improved by writing them more realistically."

How to hurt humans, Ayatane thought, although those maneuvers would certainly work against reyvateils and most Teru. Same with a humanoid virus' physical body, although Ayatane could retreat to the tower's systems.

"There are always going to be people who target the weak and defenseless," Lyner said, nodding in response to what Mir said. "We need to teach those people better," with swords if necessary, "but it's also important to make sure that there aren't any weak people for them to prey on. That no one's defenseless." Even if there times someone couldn't help themselves, that was what friends and partners were for. Provided they knew how to fight. "The people of the lower world need to get used to the idea of reyvateils defending themselves, so they don't assume it's a sign that reyvateil is racist." And hates all humans: that was why people persecuted Claire. A reyvateil without a partner? When reyvateils were pressured to take partners, wasn't the only reason to refuse because they hated humans? "So reyvateils can stop being afraid that if they do defend themselves, everyone will think that they're monsters. I think that stories with heroic reyvateils, and the other stories Mir is working on can do a lot to keep children from having to live in fear, of other people and themselves."

Still, if these stories were written by Mir, then even Lyner's endorsement…

"Obviously I'm using a pen name," Mir said before Ayatane could think of a way to tactfully suggest that without Lyner saying something about how people should learn to trust Mir. "Jacqli. The robot." The name of the other Plasma Bell guardian, the one slain by Mir. "That way I can admit to being around in ancient times when I'm answering fan mail. Shurelia agreed to forward it to me while I'm on the other tower."

If Mei Mei and Kanade didn't mind, and Lyner wouldn't have let her appropriate that name if they did, then Ayatane didn't have the right to comment. Robots, like Reyvateils, were created as servants. Only servants with even less free will and, in theory, without emotion. If most people's first impression of robots was Mir's work, then that should seem like it was obviously nonsense.

That aside, even though Ayatane certainly did hope their children grew up to be Knights or at least learned how to defend themselves, '_It's Mother's writing, but… Maybe if I go into a _little _less detail… It's not as though the blood and whimpering are integral parts of these moves, after all?' _

And this was why Ayatane and his husband's children always wanted their _other _dad to be the one to read them bedtime stories.

* * *

_Because as I've said before, Shurelia's Cosmosphere had massive Unfortunate Implications._

_Well, this brings me down to… six incomplete long fanfics._

…_yay?_

_Tree of Thoth is my other Gust game fanfic, a crossover between Mana Khemia and Atelier Iris with some Yu-gi-oh elements because Roxis called himself a duelist and I couldn't resist. I've also been updating that one sporadically, and I'll try to focus on it more now that this one is done. _

_If the Evangelion characters can stop being interestingly screwed up at me for five minutes…_

_Mir and Misha along with Jack and Krusche are going to head to Metafalss, Misha since she wants to travel but also because she feels somewhat responsible for the Guardian and wants to deal with it herself since Lyner and Aurica have a tower UN and a religion to run. _Songs of Experience_, should I ever wrap up my other fics and get around to it, would be about what happens there, but, you know, it's Mir and she's just going to have more back-up, so they'll be fine._


End file.
